


I Am With You

by poopsiekittens



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Ben Solo Lives, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Ben doesn't know how to talk to a girl, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Loss of Virginity, Nightmares, Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Soft Ben Solo, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Fix-It, TROS Fix IT, They turn Padme's house on Naboo into their smut-hut, smut in later chapters, soft rey, the angst is real, uh-oh Poe Dameron
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-13
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:13:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 28,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22240864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poopsiekittens/pseuds/poopsiekittens
Summary: This is my fix-it for The Rise of Skywalker, I need this for therapy-----‘Hey,’ he says, at a loss for words and feeling incredibly weak, but moving his arms to embrace her and support her weight as best he can.Her smile is like nothing he’s seen before and even though he feels like falling back to surrender to the debilitating fatigue, her joy hits him like a bolt up his spine.‘Ben!’ she calls him and there’s no question about who he is in this moment when his name sounds like a prayer on her lips. He truly feels for the first time in more than a decade that he can be Ben. Her hands caress his face, surprised at noticing that his scar is gone and he thinks that no matter what comes next, there is a place in this world where Ben can exist.
Relationships: Kylo Ren & Rey, Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 73
Kudos: 203
Collections: TROS Reylo Fix-it Fics, The Rise of Skywalker: Fix-It Fic Edition





	1. Easy as a sigh

From the depths of a cold chasm, a broken man remembers that he is not allowed to die. Not yet, he is not done. Even though the fall has shattered his leg and tore through his side, his lungs are still expanding and collapsing. Ben Solo’s mind phases in and out of consciousness, barely aware of the distant noise, but he can feel the whispers and the terrible power surge. Then, darkness, oblivion. A thread of light pierces through. Life, hope. He grabs it and keeps onto it to tether himself to this plane. For a moment, there is nothing except for the excruciating pain in his body.

His lungs expand with a sudden, painful gasp when he feels the little thread snap under his fingers. Something is wrong within himself. A sudden absence revolts his body into action. Something important is gone. 

There is a nothingness in his mind that his thoughts insist on passing over again and again, like a tooth his tongue suddenly discovered missing. Back and forth and back and forth, there’s something essential that he must remember. It draws him awake. His eyes open and it’s dark, the flashes are gone, only a faint blue light illuminating the length of the long trek up. The pain in his body is insurmountable. So much of his life force was taken that he cannot focus away from it, it stifles any thought and makes the notion of movement seem ludicrous. 

He closes his eyes again and he reaches out, to find that string of her in himself that always centers and gives him strength. Reach out, and out, and out to the place where he finds balance. It all comes to a halt. The awareness of Rey missing in the force comes sudden and certain. He’s suddenly standing. There’s a rushing noise in his ears, louder than the waves crashing against his body on Kef Bir, louder than the pain of his torn body. A pull, a call to the surface draws him up and up, and up to see. To look. The conviction that he must be wrong runs his limbs to grab and pull himself up rock, by rock, by rock.

It can’t be.

No. The reasons come easy. It’s him, he is too weak, he lost the connection to her. Palpatine took it away, their bond, he used it to come back and it’s now gone. The thought terrifies him but it’s certainly better than the alternative, so the shaky confidence takes root. He only needs to see her for a minute to make certain. One hand grabs onto the mouth of the chasm and he drags himself out. His side explodes in pain when he drops onto the surface, but relief surges through him when he sees her lying down on the ground.

There she is! 

Her back is to him so now he just needs to make it to her, take a look and then all will be right again. They’re all gone. Palpatine, the Sith, the Star Destroyers above, everything is eerily silent. She’s made it, she did it. His strong, brave Rey did it.

The emptiness in his mind where she used to be is screaming, but all his thoughts are focused on covering the distance to her and look. Just one look. He falls down on his shattered knee, but it doesn’t matter, the pain won’t matter once he makes it to her and sees, so he crawls and gets back up again and stumbles to her. If he focuses on her form, he is certain that she’s breathing, and for a moment his heart swells. She’s fine, she’s alive, he just can’t feel her. 

As he’s coming around to face her, joy that he’s made it to her surges in his chest. He can see in his mind’s eye how she will look at him and blink and anticipates the relief of being certain that she is there. Her face comes into view and he drops next to her, frozen in the moment of waiting for her stillness to change into motion. For her open eyes to notice him, for her lids to blink, for her mouth to open, for the imagined to come true.

But as her eyes stay hollow, and her face immobile, and her shoulders still with the absence of breath the empty space where she used to be in his mind ruptures, tears through his body and freezes the blood in his veins. For a moment it’s as if his own mind is a void.

She’s gone and he failed. 

His hands are shaking so hard that it’s hard to move intentionally, but he grabs her upper arm, looking for a pulse point. The chill of her flesh is answer enough. He pulls her body to rest on his knees and envelops her in his arms hesitantly at first, feeling like somehow this is a violation. Wondering if she’d have pushed him away in disgust, oh how much he wishes she would wake up and tear his eyes out with her bare fingers so he wouldn’t have to look. 

This slip of a woman, so small in his arms, yet feels so heavy. It’s as if he can see for the first time how young she truly is, how vulnerable and fragile even though in his mind’s eye she has always been pure steel. As he holds her, he wills her to move, to see him and push him away. To shout out his sins and hold him accountable. As her body remains motionless, his head turns, shying away involuntarily, not wanting to see. The image of her dead is too vile to be real but nonetheless is imprinted on the back of his eyelids. The muscles of his stomach jump and clench, a dry heave and a sob escaping his chest. But he turns again to look. 

Ben Solo takes in the still, open eyes of Rey, the Scavenger from Jakku and he finally feels that small piece of his soul that he had buried deep and kept safe from the pain and the hurt, from Luke and Snoke and Palpatine shatter to finally leave no part of himself unbroken.

She died alone.

He draws her to his chest in a desperate embrace. If only he had enough warmth to give her, but his soul has frozen. Why is he alive? How could he be alive while she isn’t? The thought of going on, of leaving this place without her is obscene. She should have killed him, left him to die on the Death Star, at least he would have died by her hand. But she healed him, she healed his wound and his scars and gave him the strength to face his nightmare. Han. His biggest mistake until today. 

But if he found a way to continue as Kylo Ren after his father’s death, there is no way, no path, no avenue for him to go on while she is not here. He hugs her to him tight and then he feels it. Their bond, still there but empty. A dyad, a bond like life itself. The string that used to tether them to each other lays dead between them but not gone. In healing him, she gave him some of her life force and he felt that pathway come to life. Now he knows how to find it. It won’t be the same as healing, but he needs to try, even if it kills him, he needs to try. 

He lowers her back to his knees, holding on to the awareness of their connection and relaxes with the conviction of his mission. His eyes close and he brings one hand to cover her narrow torso. He breathes out, and out, and out, and into her. Giving her his life turns out to be no harder than a sigh, with each exhale the weight of the grief lifting. 

Come back to me.

‘If you do this, you will die,’ the voice of a young man interrupts his meditation and Ben opens his eyes to see a familiar face looking down on him with sadness. It takes a few beats to place him, the intrusion so unexpected in its delay that it seems impossible for a moment.

‘You were quite hard to reach, Ben.’ The young man talking to him, enveloped in a faint blue glow has the same features of Anakin when he was young, a face he has only gotten to know after starting to visit his grandmother’s house in Naboo this past year. Rummaging through memories kept safe, he found his portrait locked in one of the chests, mistakenly mixed with preserved paraphernalia from the old house. 

‘Grandfather,’ Ben’s voice breaks, seeing his grandfather young and realizing for the first time that the man he had been searching in the dark side for so many years was unreachable because he was one with the light. 

‘It doesn’t matter. As long as she lives,’ Ben turns to come back to the task at hand. This moment is not about his life or his pain anymore. This is about her.

‘Having to live without the person you love. That’s a certain kind of curse,’ Anakin says. ‘I was dead the moment Padme left this world.’

‘At least she’ll be alive. I don’t know what else to do.’ Ben looks down at Rey with desperation.

‘I do. I don’t know how to bring back someone who’s gone, I never did. But I can give you the strength to stay for her.’ Anakin kneels next to Ben and says ‘Breathe with me.’

So Ben does, he closes his eyes again, feeling his grandfather’s guiding him gently for the first time, not in the darkness, but in the highest act of love and compassion. As Ben breathes his life into his loved one, Anakin keeps him tethered to the purpose of being there for her when she wakes up.

He calls to her the way he has heard her call through her meditations every day of the past year. 

Be with me. Be with me. Be with me.

\--

The world is muffled, it is not dark or light, because she has no eyes to see, but there is an absence of feeling. She cannot call it darkness or silence as she cannot remember what sound or light are. Rey’s sense of being comes into focus. If she is or was doesn’t matter anymore.

She is Rey. 

There is no time here but there are long spaces in between. From thought to thought, an eternity of patience.

She’s weightless and insubstantial, amorphous but the knowledge that there’s a tether from her to somewhere that’s not here. Awareness of the tether hurts and she recoils from it, sinking deeper into the peace of this muffled place. The call gets louder, not a sound, not a voice, but a feeling. And she finds that she can feel. Not her own feelings, but of someone entwined with her as if the strings of her being have been mixed and have grown around him. 

Ben. 

The name comes defined and sharp in a world of muteness. In a moment, the understanding of a choice forms. The pull is not enough to draw her if she won’t hold on to it. She hesitates, knowing that one choice comes with silence and one with pain. But as the pull gets stronger, she feels the emotion she’s been craving for through all her existence. She grips it tight.

Ben.

He’s a breath that makes air possible again. He’s her lungs, moving her chest, starting her heart, pumping life and blood back into her body. 

The first thing she feels is his hand, before her eyes see, before the world is real, at the end of the tether is his hand and she grabs it.

Suddenly, her eyes that never blinked see the sparse rock of Exegol once again.

\--

For a brief moment, she is confused. The last thing she remembers is Palpatine, her grandfather's grotesque face disintegrating and then, a weakness so profound that nothing could shake it. She didn't have time to think, but she felt happy at the thought of her friends being out there. And then, a flicker, Ben was still alive. The darkness and the cold enveloped her and it felt like Death. But now, she is back and she feels warm, she feels safe. She looks up and the face of Ben Solo is looking down at her.

His eyes are shining and there is no secret, no edge between them. The warmth, it's him, the love is theirs. He is here for her as she dreamed it, as the Force showed her he would be.

As she moves to cover the hand on her abdomen with hers, happiness bursts through his chest like a wild bird. He holds her minutely closer for a moment, before opening his eyes, ready to let her go if that is what she wants him to do.

But that never comes. Instead, when her eyes find his, she seems to be sprung into motion, sitting up to look at him a little better, the look in her eyes the same as when the force connected them when he arrived to Exegol.

_It’s good to see you too, Rey._

‘Hey,’ he says, at a loss for words and feeling incredibly weak, but moving his arms to embrace her and support her weight as best he can.

Her smile is like nothing he’s seen before and even though he feels like falling back to surrender to the debilitating fatigue, her joy hits him like a bolt up his spine. 

‘Ben!’ she calls him and there’s no question about who he is in this moment when his name sounds like a prayer on her lips. He truly feels for the first time in more than a decade that he can be Ben. Her hands caress his face, surprised at noticing that his scar is gone and he thinks that no matter what comes next, there is a place in this world where Ben can exist.

Holding her closely, he memorizes the lines of her face, her beautiful smile and the tears glistening in her eyes. She truly is the most lovely being he has ever seen and the love in his heart blooms and blossoms right into their link. The string between them has never felt so tight, so close and so free with both of them open to each other. She echoes it back to him, she loves him, he feels it in her thoughts and can read it on her face. And this is everything, he feels like he could stay in this moment forever. Despite the weakness, despite the crushing pain in his leg and left side, there has been no other moment in his life when he’s felt this happy. 

Until he feels her shift and is so caught off guard by her lips that he almost fails to adjust the angle of his head. But his chin dips down instinctively, his lips catching hers at the last moment and they’re kissing.

She is kissing him, wrapped so tightly in his arms. He's here, with her, they did it. 

She’s tender and fierce and Rey, just his Rey, alive and vibrant in his arms. All he can do is surrender to her hands in his hair, to her soft lips and puffs of air on his cheek. The hand holding the back of her neck moves up to cup her delicate head and the arm around her torso pulls her closer to him. 

She can taste the salt on his lips and, with it, the memory of his grief over her lifeless body. And she has to pull back and look at him, to make sure he's really there, hers to kiss again and again and again. 

The movement causes white-hot pain to shoot up his leg and his injured side comes back to life with a vengeance. When she feels his body lock down in pain, she frowns in question, but Ben’s face holds nothing but tenderness and gratitude. He smiles a boyish smile, letting her know he's happy, his mind connected to hers. The muscles stretch and tear off the last hardened pieces of Kylo Ren and wipe the remnants of his life under Palatine’s influence. She smiles back at him again with hope and compassion, her hand moving down when he feels his slide from her body, now too weak to support her weight. 

‘Ben, I’m sorry…’ she starts, but her voice catches in her throat and tears spill on her cheeks, too full of emotion to articulate her regret. She catches both of his hands in his and he squeezes gently, aware that her fingers are hurt from fighting. He shakes his head and lifts their entwined fingers and kisses her knuckles to tell her that there’s no need to apologize.

But soon he feels like it’s him that will have to apologize for breaking this moment and tries to show it with his eyes before his train of consciousness is suddenly interrupted and he passes out.

\--

Rey tries to break his fall, but his body is heavy and all she manages is to prevent the back of his head from crashing against the stone floor with her hand. She winces at the thud his body makes when he hits the ground and stares at him for a moment, her thoughts sluggishly trying to put the last things she remembers into a coherent sequence. 

Palpatine, Ben arriving and then, a pain so great and all-encompassing that it felt like her very soul was being vaporized. She rose, she fought and then - nothing.

She looks back at him, figuring a way to proceed. This might get complicated with only the two of them here and a man as heavy as a boulder. She assesses his injuries and detects the broken ribs, the broken leg and the hairline fissures in his vertebrae. She winces in pain and regretfully disentangles their fingers, all too aware he needs medical help, that at the moment she is too weak to provide.

She gets up and hesitates to leave him there for a moment, afraid he might wake up and find himself alone. She resolves to try her best and keep their mind link alive while she limps away to where she’s left her ship, hoping without hope that maybe the ship he came in would have a functioning communication system and medical supplies.

For the first time since she woke up, she realizes how eerily quiet this place is now that the battle above has seemingly ceased. Her heart constricts wondering who of her friends has made it. She is now too weak to reach out so far, but she consoles herself with the memory of feeling them in the force right after Palpatine had gone.

Arriving at where Luke’s X wing is, she is immensely relieved to notice the TIE fighter Ben came with. It’s an old imperial model that she is quite familiar with from her scavenging days on Jakku and she knows there should be a functioning short-range communication system. Or, at least, she is fairly certain she could fix it if it’s broken.

She inputs the Millennium Falcon’s short-range code and with a fearful heart calls. ‘Chewie, this is Rey. Respond.’ No answer comes for a moment and her heart drops at the thought that the system might be working but that there is no wookie on the other end of the line to answer.

‘Chewie, this is Rey, I need help. Respond.’ She gets up to rummage through the compartments in the tight space to find the emergency medpac hoping that as old and in disrepair this ship is, there would still be some medical supplies on it.

As she finally locates what looks like an old medpac containing some old bacta patches and a few adrenalin shots, the familiar growl she’s been hoping to hear crackles through the speakers asking her where she is.

‘Chewie!’ she exclaims, not wanting to finish her thought of you made it.

The wookie callously answers that of course he made it and her heart calms.

‘I need help, I have someone with me who is injured and I need to transport them. Bring the emergency medpac from the Falcon too.’

Chewie asks her who is it, as she knew he would but she knows it’s too risky to tell him over a short-range comm. She trusts him to trust her and follow her lead once he is here.

‘I can’t tell you, Chewie. You will see when you arrive. Please don’t tell anyone and you have to come alone. Understand? Just you.’

He acquiesces and she gives him instructions on where to land and how to find them. Rey breathes with the relief that she is soon going to get help.

\--

Rey rushes back to him, finding him still completely passed out, so she cuts off his pant leg and applies the soothing bacta patches as best she can. She injects him with the old medicine she finds in the kit, unsure of its effectiveness. 

This seems to bring him back, at least half-way, he blinks confusedly around and there’s only a hint of recognition in his eyes. She isn’t entirely sure if he knows what’s happening, his mind and thoughts now distant and fragmented. She drags him up to his feet, feeling quite unsteady herself, but pushing forward until help arrives. He’s unstable and she is painfully aware that the balance she’s managing to provide with her shoulder under his left arm is, at best, precarious. But at least this way he can somewhat keep his weight off the broken leg and slowly limp out of this forsaken place. 

They don’t make it too far before the tall silhouette of Chewie comes through the narrow corridor leading to Palpatine’s throne room. The wookie rushes when she sees her but stops short and seems to freeze on the spot when he recognizes just who she’s trying to drag forward mostly unsuccessfully.

The growl he makes can’t even be attributed to his language as it’s mostly rage and unwelcome surprise.

‘Chewie, please. He helped me,’ she says, not able to give a full account of exactly how much he helped her, unsure of it herself. Standing in place seems to ruin the delicate balance she was trying to maintain as Ben’s knees give out and he drops to his knees once again. Rey winces knowing that this will only make his leg’s recovery harder and decides to not beat around the bush.

‘Leia would have wanted you to help him,’ she continues when the wookie doesn’t seem to move. A cheap shot, certainly, but it seems to be effective as Chewie reaches out with a begrudging growl to give her the medpac and then sinks to his knees to take her place supporting Ben.

Ben takes a sudden, deep breath when she administers a few shots directly to his leg and into his spine and then groans as the injured daze is slowly starting to lift off.

‘His spine is injured,’ she says, as Chewie pulls Ben back to his feet. Chewie comments on carrying him like a baby now when he’s almost as tall as himself.

‘I’ll walk.’ Ben says in a small voice, interrupting their debate. She goes on the other side of him and all three of them slowly but surely cover the distance to the Millenium Falcon.

As they carry Ben up the walkway, a figure seems to be standing in the doorway, awaiting them. Recognition passes between the two men and Rey feels that, if he were on his own two feet, Ben would turn around and flee.

‘Well, I’ll be damned. Ben Solo,’ Lando says and with his best attempt at a caustic tone, but the tears sparkling in his eyes tell a different story.

‘I said alone.’ Rey throws a disapproving look to Chewie and the wookie replies that it was either coming with him or ejecting him out in space, not much of a choice there.

‘Uncle Lando.’ Ben stands a little bit straighter, even though it must pain him terribly.

‘You look like you’ve been passed through a grinder.’ Lando steps out of the way and gestures them to proceed and sit his injured nephew down.

‘Worse.’ Rey says as they let Ben lie down on the main bunk bed and drops the medpac on the bed to replace the old bacta sheets on his injuries.

Lando looks from her to him and smirks.

‘All it took was a girl, huh?’

The answering look Ben gives Rey is at best sheepish, or maybe slightly proud and she wants to smack him maybe. Just a little. But instead, she contends to keep working on him with a small smile.

‘Do you have a safe place to go?’ Rey asks him and he nods. ‘I will take Luke’s ship back to our base and check on everyone.’

‘Can you take him? Please, I will explain everything after he gets proper medical help.’ Rey turns from Ben to face Lando and Chewie, half-determined to play a Jedi mind trick on them if that’s what it would take. 

Chewie growls sarcastically something about death being the best way to stop feeling pain, but she can feel he’s curious and above all, hopeful that maybe, somehow, he is getting his nephew back.

‘I promised him once that if he’s in trouble, he can come to me. I guess it’s time I own up to that promise,’ Lando says. ‘Things will get ugly if word of this got out. The wolves will come,’ he warns Rey. 

‘I’ll take care of that for now.’ Rey answers and turns to Ben. He tries his best to school his features as the uncertainty of what’s to come next hits him in full for the first time. 

The fear that this is goodbye rears up its ugly head and Rey sees the question in his eyes and the resigned regret that this is rushed and with an audience. She sits down next to him just for a moment to squeeze his hand with the promise she will try her best to get to him as soon as possible.

‘See you later. I’ll come to you,’ she tells him and he nods quietly.

Rey has to ignore the ache in her chest as she gets up and turns to walk away with one last look at Ben Solo, looking quite small and vulnerable in the bunk bed of the Millenium Falcon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come say hi on Twitter @poopsiekittens


	2. Goodbye, Princess

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ‘There are things I need to tell both of you. You are the only people here I can trust, and in the absence of Leia, I need to ask for your help.’
> 
> They both sit soberly down.
> 
> ‘Finn, I am talking to you as a friend, not as the General. I hope you will be able to hear what I have to say.’
> 
> She takes a deep breath and starts.
> 
> ‘A year ago, Kylo Ren killed Snoke.’
> 
> \--
> 
> Huge thank you for @HarleyQuinn1317 for being my beta for this chapter!

The flight back to the Resistance base passes in a muddled blur of feelings and questions. The events of the past few hours come to Rey in fragmented flashes that seem more like a remembered nightmare than reality. Every time she tries to recall the events, she is able to make less and less sense of what happened.

The only solid and real thought is Ben. His arms holding her, anchoring her, and his smile...his heart. Ben is real.

As the shock is starting to wear off, her mind is only now starting to catch up with the events of the past day. There’s a part of her mind that keeps cowering away from trying to recompose all of these pieces in a coherent timeline. The stench of death permeating Exogol. The deformed stump of malevolence that was her grandfather. The image of Palpatine is burned on her retinas, the creeping sense of helplessness threatening to overwhelm her again. 

She had wanted to kill him. Luke, Leia, even Ben had said to her that the Dark Side was seductive, but the offer of her grandfather was repulsive. _He_ was repulsive. His presence around her revolted and terrified her. She hadn’t wanted to kill him for revenge or for power, but because something as corrupted as him shouldn’t be allowed to exist. She slams those thoughts back down, her stomach roiling, and pushes forward anticipating the comfort of seeing her friends again. 

As her ship approaches the green curve of Ajan Kloss, her attention tunnels in expectation of landing and her heart constricts again at the thought of what she might find once she makes planetfall. 

\--

Looking around the Resistance base, Finn takes in all the happy faces of the remaining Resistance members. Finally, a sound of undeniable victory. And yet, even if they won this battle, he knows the war isn’t over. The First Order’s strength is its fleet, but not just. They are deployed all around key planets, sometimes visible, and sometimes not. The outposts are meant to control local resources, but its true weapon is the endless supply of First Order members. The ones that are either sent to infiltrate communities or that have always lived there, but are enlisted to play the eyes and ears of the regime, that corrupt and bribe the power when it is in their interest to act non-violently. 

But today, even beyond defeating the Final Order, they have gained two unbeatable advantages: the news that the Stormtroopers are deserting in big numbers and that the people are rallying and fighting back to excise the oppressive local factions.

Searching in the crowd, he finally finds the face he was looking for. Rose is alive and unscathed, hugging everyone she encounters in her path. After all of this time, there are only three people in the whole wide Galaxy that he truly cares for: Rey, Poe and Rose. They each came across his path to teach him a lesson: how it is to have someone that feels like your family, how it is to have friendship, and lastly, a lesson he was maybe too afraid to learn, how it is to love and be loved. 

In the First Order, attachments were not only prohibited, but also impossible. He never got to spend a long time anywhere, was never with a group for long enough to form a connection or even to start feeling like his surroundings were familiar. Joining the Resistance seemed to be trading a life of certain uprooting with a life of uncertain instability. Being on the run for the past year hasn’t allowed him to shake off the feeling that he still needs to have his bag always packed and ready to pull out from under his bunk in another crazy dash for survival. But he wants to envision it, a future where he won’t always be on the run.

His train of thought is interrupted by the excited beeps of BB-8 as a body collides with him from the side. He doesn’t need to look to know who it is.

‘We won?!’ Poe seems as incredulous as him that they made it.

‘We won.’ Finn replies, letting the disbelief of being here and being alive finally sink in as he hugs his friend. 

‘How was it even possible? Why did the lightning stop?’ Poe asks.

‘Rey...did something, I don’t yet know what, but I think Palpatine is dead.’

He doesn’t know how Rey did it, but it’s undeniable that they were going to lose and what she did swayed the battle decidedly in their favour. He is too new at intentionally using the ‘feeling’ but he is still aware that, at some point, Rey was dead and now she is not.

Today has taught him that there are things about his friend that he cannot understand and that he cannot truly empathise with the weight of her responsibility. When they first met, their lives weren’t that different. Two orphans looking to escape a nightmare childhood and seeking a life of freedom. In the end, _now,_ their destinies seemed to take quite different paths, her war and battles very different than his. But the Force is also with him and whatever this new aspect of his life means, he is ready to learn and understand and he hopes that Rey will be part of that.

An old model X-wing breaks the atmosphere and Finn instantly knows who it is. 

\--

Rey steps out from the cockpit of the old ship in the middle of the Resistance celebrating. It feels surreal to be here again. This has been her home for the better part of a year, and it eventually started feeling like a safe place, even though she knew it was just temporary. She has left this place less than twenty hours ago but it already feels distant, like what she imagines going back to Jakku would feel like.

She can feel everyone’s exhilaration, but in this moment she cannot join in. The shadow of the pain, the feeling of her life being sucked out of her is too fresh and potent in her mind to let herself feel joy. She can see Rose close by and as her eyes find Finn’s, two things happen simultaneously to freeze her into place.

First, the relief that he’s okay washes over her and the lid containing her is peeled away. The realization that today was real and it all happened to her finally descends in full force, making the pieces she was barely holding together break apart.

Second, the memory of throwing him back and possibly hurting him flashes in her mind. Him and Poe are standing together and the fear that she is no longer welcome here with them strikes her to her core. If they rejected her, she doesn’t think she would be able to take it but she knows it’s not up to her, so she stops cold, tears spilling down her cheeks.

Her apology written on her face, Finn can practically feel her regret but also her pain and need and feels himself start to cry too. 

_It doesn’t matter._ He tries to tell her, but the words get stuck in his throat. 

‘Is Palpatine dead?’ Poe asks. And Rey can only nod her head in confirmation.

‘Thank you,’ the man that has challenged her at almost every step this past year tells her. 

As if in sync, both him and Poe wrap themselves around Rey because none of it matters. The bickering, the secrets they know they’re keeping from each other, none of them matter when it comes down to the fact that they would put their lives in each other’s hands on any day.

Rey takes it all in, relieved and grateful yet again at the almost unconditional acceptance Finn has always shown her and she thinks that maybe it is time to trust him with the full story.

It is when she finally sees Rose, sitting quietly behind, that another truth finally hits her with the full force of its finality.

_Leia is gone._

Her master, the only person in her life that guided her and taught her will never be there to give her advice, to hear her concerns, to ease her mind when she feels unworthy. 

Her feet carry her to Rose, feeling the surge of emotions rising up in her chest and threatening to spill. 

‘You’re a mess,’ Rose tells her with tears in her eyes in an echo of their conversation on Mon Cala after she had to intervene and save Rey from getting killed by an RK-9 droid. 

‘You’re a wreck,’ Rey replies with a half-laugh, half sob, her lower lip wobbling. And in the arms of her friend, she finally lets the torrent bubble up and overflow.

\-- 

She doesn’t exactly know or remember for how long she cries, or how she has made it to the floor of Rose’s hut, just that now that it’s over she feels deeply exhausted and eerily calm. She is aware of a stinging sensation coming from her forehead and recognizes that Rose is gently tapping her scrapes with bacta.

‘Are you hurt somewhere big? Maybe we should go to the med droid.’

Rey shakes her head no, knowing her physical injuries are negligible compared to some of the people that got really hurt during the battle.

‘Rey, whatever happened, I will listen if you want to talk.’ 

Before she can reply, Finn comes in with a cup of Galantean tea that she welcomes, her tongue thick and her throat dry. 

‘Do you know anything about Chewie and Lando? We can’t seem to reach them,’ Finn asks.

Rey nods ‘They made it.’

‘Would you like to rest? You can stay in here, I don’t mind.’ Rose is already moving around to prepare her bunk for sleep.

She sips the hot liquid quietly and she would like to answer yes, oh how much she would like to lay down and not wake up for hours and hours but the countdown hasn’t stopped for her yet. Time is still running out for Ben.

‘What happened with Kylo Ren? Is he dead?’ Finn asks.

‘He is dead, in a way.’

‘In a way?’

‘Finn, there are things about the Force you cannot understand.’

‘Then tell us. We want to understand. Please,’ Rose says, gently touching her shoulder. Rey nods, finally making the choice of not keeping this burden all to herself.

‘There are things I need to tell both of you. You are the only people here I can trust, and in the absence of Leia, I need to ask for your help.’

They both sit soberly down.

‘Finn, I am talking to you as a friend, not as the General. I hope you will be able to hear what I have to say.’

She takes a deep breath and starts.

‘A year ago, Kylo Ren killed Snoke.’

As both Finn and Rose make faces and open their mouths to speak, she raises her hand to stop them.

‘Please don’t interrupt me. I don’t think I will ever have the courage to share this story in full with anyone again.’ 

‘Right after Star Killer, when I was on Ach-To, something happened within the Force, something neither of us expected or understood, and we started seeing each other. He would pop up in my space as if he was there with me and me with him. We had no control over it.

Being on Ach-To was difficult for me. Luke refused to come back, he refused to train me and the lessons he gave me were more about convincing me to let it all go rather than teaching me what to do with all of these new abilities. I felt truly lost and alone there, and somehow, Ben was there to listen. I didn’t only see him, I could also feel him. I’ve felt him ever since he tried to look inside my mind on Star Killer and, unknowingly, gave me access to his.

I already knew he was conflicted, but I was ready to hate. I wanted to hate. In talking with him, though, I found that I couldn’t hate him, but instead, I could understand him. He wanted me to see, so I listened. He told me something about Luke that was shocking but made sense of why he would be hiding away on that island, closing himself to the force and letting himself wither away on that lonely rock. 

Luke almost tried to kill him when he was just a padawan. He admitted to it himself when I confronted him. It was a fleeting moment, but Ben woke up with his uncle holding a lightsaber over his head, ready to strike and it was all too late.

Ben ran, I don’t know the details, but he ran to Snoke and from then on, he was trained by him. I felt his conflict, it wasn’t just a glimmer. To me, it was there, right on the surface so I thought he would be what changes the tide for us in winning the war. I saw it in a vision and the decision was made. I was so certain.

I went on the Supremacy with nothing but my lightsaber and faith that standing together will be enough to beat Snoke. Things didn’t go the way I planned. I expected us to go in, sabers ablaze and take Snoke down, but Ben… Kylo Ren still seemed to be serving his master. He waited in silence until he found a moment to beat Snoke at his own game. I was immobilized; he did it all by himself. When he was asked to kill me, he killed Snoke instead. Then, together, we killed all of the guards.

‘Then he’s a Usurper. He-’ Finn interrupted. 

‘Perhaps,’ Rey cuts him off. ‘There is more. He asked me to join him, he practically offered me his hand and I refused. We fought over the lightsaber and that’s how the crystal broke. Snoke said that he was the one to bridge our minds, but he lied. Our minds stayed connected after Crait and we both stayed angry at each other. It seemed like neither of us could really let the other go.’

Rose and Finn look at each other in confusion, then at Rey and start speaking at the same time.

‘Is Kylo Ren _in love_ with you?’ Finn asks.

‘You are in love with Ben Solo,’ Rose states.

‘Please, listen until the end.’ Rey says, not being able to hold it together for this last part. The part she hasn’t had time to think about yet. The part that scared her to death and made her flee to Ach-To. 

‘Today things got out of hand and even though he tried to warn me repeatedly about Palpatine and tried to prevent me from going to Exegol alone, I pushed him away until he wouldn’t get out of the way. So I killed him.’

Finn and Rey are alarmed and confused, but they see how hard this is to say out loud, so they keep listening.

‘I attacked him and he wasn’t fighting me. Not really. He was trying to tire me out so I would listen to him and that only made me angrier. We had lost so much time looking for that Wayfinder, and then he broke it and gave me no choice but to go with him. I lost it.’ She looks cautiously at Finn, knowing he got caught in her anger too, but he gives her a curt nod to continue.

‘I went at him again, and again and he-I think he was starting to give in to the anger too. Then...Leia reached out to him and distracted him.’ Rey’s voice breaks, shaking now, the words harder and harder to get out with this admission of guilt. 

‘He-eee dropped his s-saber and I took it a-and I-I stabbed him. Straight through. I would have killed him. And he - he just sat there, dying and he didn’t - didn’t even look at me.’ Rey finds it’s suddenly very hard to breathe and her teeth are chattering.

‘He didn’t say - anything, he was waiting - for it to be over. I regretted it instantly. I did the same thing that e-everyone else ha-aaad done to him, I tri--eeed to k-k-ill...’ her words trail off and she finally gives in to the visceral emotion that memory causes ‘I re-re-regretted it.’

Rose shifts closer to her and gently nudges the mug of tea she’s holding. Rey takes a sip of the cooling liquid. It helps to continue talking.

‘I healed him. I didn’t know what that would do, if it would work on such a serious wound, if it would take too much of me. But there was no way for me to continue knowing that I gave the killing blow. Not to him. 

He was confused when he understood what I was doing, he was even grateful. I felt so wretched. Even though I did that, I could feel he still loved me. Ben, he was always there, just under the surface, and that’s who I wanted. I took away the wound but not-not the act. I took it away and ran.’

Rey hesitates for a moment, the truth about her connection to Palpatine on the tip of her tongue, but at the last moment, she refrains. _A truth for another time, maybe._

‘There are things in the middle, but I ended up going to Exegol in the end. To confront Palpatine. To kill him, but it was a trap. I fell right into it and so did Ben. He came to help and we fought together against the Knights of Ren and the guards. But it didn’t matter, we couldn’t fight Palpatine.’

‘What did Palpatine want?’ Finn asks.

‘I think at first - to use my body to come back. He was little else than a talking corpse. But then Ben came and he found a better way.

Ben and I, I don’t know if I can explain it or even understand it. Our connection - Palpatine said we are one in the Force, a dyad. That this bond is a force like life itself and then he started draining us to regenerate. The pain - I have never felt anything like that. It felt like every drop of my blood was being sucked out of me. I think I passed out, and when I came to, Ben was gone, he threw him away and I was alone. Palpatine was destroying our fleet and I had nothing inside to go on. 

So I just b-beegged for help,’ Rey sobs remembering the helplessness and desperation. ‘Leia tried to teach me how to meditate to get in touch with the ancestor Jedi, so that they would guide me on my path. I failed every time, but this time, I found the calm and strength to do it. I used everything I had left in me to call on them to help. There were voices, and somehow, I could stand up. I heard many voices I didn’t know, but Luke and Leia were there too. Somehow, I was able to shield myself and reflect the lightning back at Palpatine and destroy him.’

Rey breathes out, knowing she reached the end of her story for now. ‘I don’t remember what came next. I think I passed out again.’

Finn looks at her for a long time.

‘Rey, I felt you - die. Right after the lightning ceased. I felt you _leave_.’ Finn tells her quietly.

‘I died?’ she asks, confused. How could she have died when she is here, living and breathing?

‘I died,’ she states again. ‘And when I woke up he was holding me.’ Rey is no longer recounting the facts, but slowly putting the puzzle back together. ‘He passed out afterwards and he felt so faint.’ The quiet place comes back to her, not as a memory, but more as a feeling of certainty that she was gone from this plane of existence.

‘He brought you back.’ Rose says. ‘This fight, Rey. It’s always been about saving what we love. You gave him a second chance and he used it to come and save you.’

‘But if I was dead…’ Rey murmurs, knowing that it doesn’t work that way. The Force cannot bring people back once they are gone. 

Her last words are lost on Finn and Rose who are now looking at each other, sharing one moment of recognition that there is something they have never properly discussed after Crait.

‘You _felt_ me?’ Rey picks up on what Finn just said.

‘Yes, this is what I have been meaning to tell you. For a while now actually. I have been able to feel things, with the Force. I think I might have it too. Not like you, but it allows me to feel things and to know things.’

‘Finn...’ she grabs his hand. And she is happy. For him and for their friendship too. Her and Finn have been drifting further and further apart with him taking a role in the Resistance command. On top of that, she didn’t imagine that the news about Ben would bring them closer together. But _this,_ this might be the way.

Finn shakes his head. ‘This does not erase what he did, Rey. He is a killer.’

‘And so am I and you, and all of us!’ Rey grabs his hands more tightly. ‘Please. Leia, Han, Luke, they all died to bring him back. Leia died _today._ Don’t send her son to execution just in the name of retribution.’

‘I didn’t say anything about execution!’ Finn pulls back.

‘That’s what they’ll do. You _have_ to see that’s what they’ll do!’

Finn looks down and seems to be weighing his decision for a long time. When he lifts his eyes back to Rey, his decision is made.

‘I can only accept this if you promise me that he will be brought to trial, Rey.’

‘He’s hurt. Badly, and needs time to heal. We need _time_ and the circumstances to give him a fair trial.’

‘Rey, I am afraid that short of pretending he died and hiding him away, there’s no way that’s going to happen.’ Rose says.

‘We need to tell Poe.’

‘Finn, I need time. I will tell Poe myself but I just need to buy some time.’

‘I think...maybe if you find a peaceful place where he could ask for asylum for an impartial trial. That could be a start.’ Rose says.

As she slowly moves to get up from the floor, Finn speaks again

‘I’m sorry. That you had to go through all of this alone.’

‘I wasn’t, not all the time,’ she turns to look pointedly at both of them.

‘And now you don’t have to be,’ Rose speaks. Tears flood Rey’s eyes again and she finally pushes herself up to stand. 

She leaves Rose’s shack feeling an unmistakable buzz from between Rose and Finn and smiling a little to herself. She has been able to feel echoes of that many times during the past year but it usually led to them awkwardly looking away from each other. She hopes this time, they will be brave enough to talk about it.

She breathes out, relieved, feeling like a huge weight has been lifted off her shoulders. The road ahead will be long but now she has a start. 

A start is good.

-

When she steps out, she realizes she had completely lost track of time. The evening has descended and it looks like preparations for a celebration are in full swing. Colourful garlands are being hung around all over their base and it’s looking like more and more of the people that had joined the battle are landing on the planet. She shakes her head, amazed that people would not postpone the party not even to get a few hours’ sleep.

Her heart jumps when she sees the Millenium Falcon stationed a few paces away from Luke’s X-wing and looks around to find the tall form of Chewie animatedly talking to Connix about the cavalry attack on the Star Destroyer. 

‘Chewie!’ She goes next to the wookie.

He turns and tells her something about not getting too attached to the grime of Exegol when he sees her still dirty and wearing the same clothes. She realizes that besides Rose tending to her scrapes and the few sips of the tea Finn brought, she really hasn’t taken the time to truly breathe. 

‘Is he okay?’ she asks as they start moving towards the Millennium Falcon.

Chewie growls that he’s not dead yet so he’s doing better than he would personally want Ben to.

Rey knows this is all bravado and replies by simply hugging the big wookie, and he pats her head gently accepting her gratitude with a small purr and telling her she doesn’t need to go so soft on him. 

‘Lando?’

The wookie nods and moves to the communication panel of the ship explaining that Lando is waiting for her to call and that they can use this frequency only once. 

The voice of Lando comes through the speakers right after the first beeps. He is able to give her a run-through of Ben’s wounds and she finds that she was mostly correct: leg broken in two places, three cracked ribs and impact damage to a few of his internal organs and fissures in his spine. He used his connections to get him advanced care for 24 hours on a ship in the Anoan Sector but nothing past that.

‘Can I talk to him?’ she asks.

‘He’s sleeping, he needs it to recover.’

‘He’s gonna be fine. He’s built like a fathier,’ he tells her when she stays quiet for a long time. ‘But we need to move him tomorrow, Rey.’

‘I haven’t figured out where yet. But wherever we go, it must be somewhere that would grant him asylum.’

‘Well, you’re in luck. ‘Cause I know just the place.’

‘You do?’

‘Naboo. Ben is a descendant of one of their royal families. I already requested an audience for you tomorrow.’

‘How do you know it will work?’

‘Because that’s what Leia had planned, were he ever to come back. I trust she knew it would work.’

‘Just that now I have to somehow summon Leia’s persuasion skills from somewhere.’

‘She taught you well. Trust in that.’

‘Right,’ Rey breathes out, unsure.

‘Get some rest, kid. You have done enough for today.’ Lando tells her after they make arrangements about the time and hour to convene over Naboo.

\--

After the talk with Lando, reassured that they have a semblance of a working plan, Rey finally accepts it’s time for a break. A true break. She doesn’t go back to her hut, but instead goes to the ship’s fresher, removes her clothes and throws them straight into the bin. As much as she hates any kind of waste, she wishes to never see them again. She has died in these clothes.

 _I died today_. 

This fact hits her again, but she is too emotionally exhausted to feel frightened by it. Instead, she feels strangely light as she steps under the sonic spray and allows the dried blood and the grime of Exegol to be washed off.

When she’s done, she doesn’t pull her hair tightly back into buns, as she doesn’t expect any battle to befall them tonight. So she just ties the top part up and away from her face. She picks a few pieces from her humble wardrobe, pulling on an off-white jersey with a fantabu wool tunic she has modified to fit her on top, followed by a pair of dark green pants and her leather belt.

When she steps out from the Falcon, it’s fully dark outside. The colorful garlands are hanging from practically every branch that were within reach of decorators and glowing lanterns are strewn about everywhere. She shakes her head, thinking it would be very ironic if they set fire to this forest tonight. Yet, she admits to herself that it all looks beautiful, the lights and the streaks of color giving a dream-like and intimate air to this place that used to be an outpost of war and defense. The clearing has been reorganized to house a greater number of people, tables and chairs littering the ground. There are a few people she has never seen before singing softly to the side, the song involving a lot of elaborate claps to replace instruments. So she lets the quiet din of people talking and sharing food settle her mind and envelop her in a sense of calm.

Larma D’Acy is walking around putting flower crowns on everyone’s heads and when she sees Rey, she makes a beeline to her.

‘Thank you,’ Larma says and, to Rey’s mortification lays one of the things on top of her head. Rey doesn’t protest.

She grabs one of the metal mess trays and pours some of the gruel from the huge pot gently bubbling over a fire. They’ve been having this on almost every day since they’ve been stationed here and Rey knows that what it offers in sustenance, it lacks in flavor, but she is happy to have something to eat. She sees Finn and Rose sitting in a group, listening to the girl they met today, Jannah, recounting their crazy dash on the Star Destroyer to shut down the control tower. Rose smiles when she sits down next to her, then turns her attention back to Jannah. The girl is funny, her and Finn going back and forth through the story and making everyone laugh. Rey picks up the spoon and takes the first bite of food. It’s the best thing she has ever tasted. So she digs into it heartily, suddenly realizing how hungry she is. Rose turns to her.

‘You know, a lot of things are starting to make sense from over the past year,’ Rose whispers.

‘What - things?’ Rey asks suddenly blushing, her mind rushing to recall which of their connections caught her in public.

‘Well, how you always seemed to isolate yourself. And how you sometimes would talk to yourself or just seemed to get very angry out of the blue.’

‘Oh, stars - I am sorry. I never meant to take it out on any of you. I was just trying...to keep away from him.’

‘Do you know how Finn and I met?’

‘No,’ Rey replies, a bit confused by the turn in the conversation.

‘After the First Order fleet tracked us before Crait, he was trying to board an escape pod and run away. To find you.’

‘He did that?’

‘Yes, so of course I zapped him unconscious.’

‘Of course,’ Rey laughs.

‘But then he found a reason to stay and fight. He taught me it was more important to listen and understand, instead of jumping to conclusions. Even though I would still zap him.’ Rose laughs and takes Rey’s hand.

‘I would have listened to you, Rey,’ Rose says, and again, new tears spring from Rey’s eyes.

‘Thank you, Rose. I- it’s just that I wasn’t even listening to myself. But thank you for being here now.’

Their quiet talk is interrupted when Maz walks in the centre of the clearing and lifts her hand requesting everyone’s attention. The murmur of people talking quiets down as everyone finds a place to sit or stand to hear better. It’s fascinating how this tiny alien can command everyone’s attention just by standing there. When Maz starts speaking, it’s as if the crowd is holding its breath.

‘For all of the time I have known Leia Organa, she has always strived to be a beacon of hope, of courage and a protector of the helpless. I have felt unworthy of her friendship, but nobody was unworthy in Leia’s eyes. She always managed to see the good in people, she always found a way to move forward and be a pillar of strength for the people that needed her. And she always did it with humour, grace and wit.

We have lost many people over this war. Tonight, she would have told you not to waste time with tears and not to mourn the ones you have lost. Be grateful for their sacrifice, but not to squander it. Instead celebrate their lives by filling yours with joy. To Leia!’ she raises a glass.

‘To Leia,’ the crowd responds to her toast in unison.

Afterwards, the silence is punctuated by a sniffle here and there and Rey realizes that her cheeks are also wet. Rose puts her arms around Rey’s shoulders, her own gently shaking with her tears.

Poe stands up and walks up next to Maz. His eyes are red, but when he starts speaking, his voice is strong and reassuring.

‘What Leia has offered to many of us standing here today is a place to belong. Many of us here are orphans, but she gave us a place to find family and purpose. She taught us what it means to have something to want to fight for. 

We wouldn’t have won today if it weren’t for Leia. Her tireless efforts throughout the past year have brought many of you here with us today to do what is right, despite the high cost. Yes, we have lost many people today, but know that their efforts have allowed the fire of the Resistance to burn bright. People everywhere have been rising up to stand up for Leia’s call, and together we have weakened the stranglehold of the First Order. 

The war is not over but what Leia has taught me over and over again is that every single individual can make a difference. And looking at you tonight, I know together we can make a difference and keep the darkness at bay. That is how I plan to honour her memory. This is how you can honour her memory.

Goodbye, our General,’ Poe, says.

‘Goodbye, Princess,’ Maz says.

 _Goodbye, Master._ Rey tells herself and cries quietly into Rose’s shoulder.

-

When the celebration seems to finally quiet down and more and more people are retiring to sleep for the rest of the night, Rey goes back to her hut. She feels bone-tired but even though this night has been a balm, she still feels restless and not ready to sleep. She paces around her room a few times until she decides to try and reach out for Ben. Just to feel him for a little while, even though he’s sleeping and won’t even know. Earlier, before they had to separate on Exegol, she felt their connection faint, their bond so hard to find. But being in his presence, being able to look at him and touch him reassured her. Now, she can’t feel him as before and she’s afraid that the damage that Palpatine has done to their bond is irreversible.

She relaxes, sitting down on her bunk and closing her eyes to reach out, out, and out and...nothing. She can’t find him. She feels a wave of panic surging up in her stomach, but she pushes it down recalling Lando’s reassurance than he is alright and healing.

‘Rey?’ she hears Ben’s voice suddenly in her head as if he’d been waiting there this whole time. 

There is no rushing sound, no change in pressure as before. Instead, her eyes pop open to find him laying down on her bed as if he’s been there all along and she didn’t notice him. His leg is suspended, encased in something and he seems to be barely cognizant. It’s different than before. Now, her awareness of him being separate from her is somehow blurred. She realizes she couldn’t probably feel him because he was unconscious, but with him waking up, she can now discern how his awareness is mingled with her own.

He looks at her, first through half-opened eyes, but then notices the flowers in her hair, the new clothes and his eyes get wider in wonder, his heart constricting a little at how beautiful she is like this. She blushes slightly, noticing where his attention is and feeling embarrassed for forgetting to take the silly flowers off.

‘How are you feeling?’ she asks.

‘Well. Better.’ He answers faintly as if forming words is a momentous task and she recognizes the grogginess he must feel from all the medicine. 

‘We are moving you tomorrow. To Naboo.’

He nods.

‘May I...would it be okay if I visited you?’ she asks shyly. 

‘Rey. Anytime,’ he says, suddenly more alert. 

‘Tomorrow? I mean, after they bring you to Naboo, but tomorrow?’

‘Yes.’

‘Tomorrow,’ she says again before he slips back into sleep and fades away from her bed. 

Rey lays back on her now empty bed and falls into a deep sleep of her own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter kind of took me by surprise. I had most of what I thought Chapter 2 written and that it just needed an opening. Turned out that the opening was actually Chapter 2. 
> 
> There wasn't much of Ben this chapter, but they will be reunited in Chapter 3. I just really felt I needed to write Rey processing through all of this stuff, you know, for my sanity.
> 
> I really hope you enjoyed it! Come say hi on Twitter @poopsiekittens


	3. The Bargain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ‘I have come here today to ask for asylum on your planet for a key ally of the Resistance. He was instrumental in helping us defeat the Final Order. He stood by me when I faced Palpatine. If it were not for him, we would all be plunged into the deepest darkness today.’
> 
> ‘Who is this hero you speak of?‘
> 
> ‘His name is Ben Solo.’
> 
> A deafening silence follows his name being spoken. It is not common knowledge in the Galaxy that Kylo Ren and Ben Solo are one in the same person, but Naboo is a planet of diplomacy and a keeper of history. It is very clear from all of their reactions they are well aware who Rey is talking about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone that has left a message saying that this is helping work through their feelings. Turns out this is turning angstier than I initially thought. But the sun shines at the end of this chapter. 
> 
> Look out for the updated tags. I also set the chapter count at 10 but let's see.
> 
> Big thanks to HarleyQuinn1317 on AO3 and @AdamGFerguson on Twitter for being my betas for this chapter.

Rey opens her eyes to the sight of the grey rocky expanse of Exegol. It reeks. She is prone on her front and turns her head in a futile attempt to escape the way the stench of death latches onto her throat and makes her stomach churn. 

She tries to push herself up. The drab remoteness spreads endlessly before her, threatening to swallow her whole. Her arms are loose, too soft and weak. She can’t get up. It’s as if she’s blurring, her body melting with the rock beneath her. Then she feels _it_ at the back of her head. The draw toward something corrupted. The intrusive feeling that she’s standing on the precipice of an endless black void and she wants to jump.

It wants her. A sickening presence. It’s coming.

She tries to push up more forcefully, but all it does is make the ground shift and tilt under her. It turns and spins into a giant, great wave. It’s cold. So cold. And suddenly she’s on her back, completely soaked, on the ruins of the Death Star. She scrambles to get back on her feet, fear and violence choking her. She wants to scream as the Force roils around her in swirls of all-consuming emotion, but she grips the freezing tilt of her lightsaber tighter. The wave ebbs and his dark shape comes through the curtain of water, one streak of fiery red against the monochrome of the Kef Bir landscape. 

She wants to hurt him.

As his form comes closer, lightsaber ready this time, she can hear him trying to reason with her, pushing at their connection. She lets the anger and desire that have tormented her for the past year twist and grow inside like a poisoned vine. The secret of their connection, always threatening the place in the Galaxy she’s fought so hard to carve for herself. But despite all that...

She wants him.

She strikes and strikes and strikes, feeling colder and colder as she pushes against his defence, against his unwillingness to fight her with no concern to conserve her energy. He feels like light around her and it only makes her angry. He, with his pull that has tethered her to the dark side, taunts her with his light at this moment where there is nothing but darkness. Her emotions weave and turn around her and inside her. Their shared loneliness, the way she feels every time she lays her eyes on his face. The permanent ache. His rejection. Her denial. As they twist and coil together, she lets them gain a new name. Hate. 

She wants to kill him.

He feels it, shoulders slumping just slightly, momentarily, and then he hits back, his defensive strikes turning offensive. Blow, after blow, after blow, the strikes of his lightsaber flash above her, colouring her vision red. She’s losing her grasp of time and of herself. Flash, someone is calling her name. The anger, pushing out. Flash, Finn’s face as he flies through the air. Rey’s heart feels colder and colder until it’s as if tendrils of ice spread from her chest and extend to her limbs. There is nothing but hate in between them. It’s taking over. He drives against her, challenging her. 

_Finish what you started._

Another flash and he’s above her, ready to strike her while she’s down. Flash, his lightsaber is in her hand. Flash, the red streak of light pierces through him, but it tears her apart. She would have thought it would be hot, burning, but it’s as if her entire body is sliced by ice.

She turns to look at him, but when she does, he’s in the darkness of Exegol again, surrounded by the Knights of Ren and he is close, so close, looking deep into her eyes. His lower lip is split and bleeding and there’s a gash on his cheekbone, but his scar is gone. His face is so open, so beautiful. He’s always so beautiful. His hair, no longer wet, is a dark wild halo around his head. His eyes, so bright. The light swirls and twirls between them in the Force. 

Hope.

But she blinks and suddenly she’s being swept up higher and higher into the grey until there’s nothing and no one. She floats in the cold, yearning to come back, shaking.

 _Rey._ His voice sounds far away.

A warmth is cradling her, gently wrapping itself around the chill in her soul. It melts the cold. He’s there, above her. She knows this... it’s a memory, a beautiful memory. She sits up as she remembers.

“Ben,” she says as before.

And then she kisses him, his lips as soft and warm and eager as in her memory. He smiles and smiles and trembles in her arms.

 _Thank you_ , they say to each other but his eyes apologize. _I’m sorry I couldn’t stay._

Her stomach drops as she realizes this is different. His arms fall to his sides and soon after, his whole torso drops back to the ground.

_No._

She scrambles to hold him, to lift him, but he’s too heavy.

“Stay with me!” She cries, raising herself on her knees. It’s too late. He can’t hear her. She tries to grab, fingers clutching, sobs rising in her throat, chest heaving. 

“Please.”

 _Rey,_ his voice sounds in her ears, in her head. 

His body turns to nothing, her fingers grasping at his empty shirt on the ground. It’s still warm. 

“What did you do, what did you do, what did you do?” She feels hysteria bubble deep inside her and she lifts the light garment to her face. A heave of grief and despair tear her mind apart. She wants to scream, her mouth opens with no sound. _I am alone...I am alone...I am alone._

 _Wake up!_ Ben’s deep voice is hoarse but it rings loudly through her skull.

She sits up abruptly in her bed, the misery of the dream clinging to her. She is disoriented to see that she is in her bunk on Ajan Kloss. She feels shaken to her core as she listens and strains her eyes in the low light of the morning searching for him in her room or in her head. There is nothing but the familiar shapes of her empty hut, her heart beating loudly in her ears and cold sweat dripping down her face and her back. 

She’s alone. If he woke her up, he’s gone now.

She can’t help but gather the blanket from the bed and hug it to herself while she cries quietly at the lingering sorrow in her chest.

\--

In the orbit of planet Bentin, the _Chimera_ , an Ex-Imperial ship repurposed into a repair station is housing precious cargo unbeknownst to most of its crew with the exception of it’s Captain and his old sabacc partner. In the Medbay, Ben Solo drifts in and out of consciousness, tethered to his sickbed in the Zero Gravity chamber. His dreams and reality blend into each other, a jumble of a foreign language and strange voices, images of a storm in the middle of a dark sea punctuated by a staccato of beeping noises coming from the equipment he’s hooked into.

A feeling of unease brings him out of his deep, convalescing sleep to transform into the feeling of someone else’s agony. He struggles against it momentarily, until he realizes he’s experiencing Rey’s feelings, not his own. He calls to her, confused and too weak to bring himself to full consciousness but as the feeling of bereavement mixes in with unintelligible flashes of Rey on Exegol, he realizes she’s having a nightmare and calls to her to wake up before succumbing once more to the blackout demanded by his healing brain.

After a while, the sounds of two pairs of gravity shoes clanking onto the transparisteel floor come into his awareness. His body becomes heavy once again. He falls out of consciousness again as he is being transported to a small cruiser.

Next time he comes through, it’s to Rey’s voice coming from the cruiser’s commlink, catching the end of a conversation. 

‘How do we get them to say yes?’ Rey asks. 

‘It’s not common knowledge, but Leia and Luke come from one of the royal houses of Naboo. I know her grandmother’s name was Padme Amidala. Naboo is a very bureaucratic planet and I would bet their laws protect those from high-command families. Try and see what you can find,’ Lando replies, rubbing his chin absent-mindedly. 

‘Will do.’

‘See you there, kid.’

Lando cuts the line off and turns to look at Ben, feeling his eyes on his back.

‘She’s certainly set her mind on you, that one,’ Lando says, taking the few steps needed to approach Ben’s bed. ‘Leia is gone,’ he continues at the young man’s silence. 

‘I know,’ Ben replies, his voice hoarse with sleep and injury. He looks away, fearing the condemnation he may find in Lando’s eyes.

‘Look, kid, I loved Han like a brother and I loved you and your mother like my own family. What Luke did to you wasn’t right.’ 

Ben looks up, surprised, a question on his face.

‘I have heard stories. Many of them, all different versions of what happened at that Temple. I just chose to believe the most plausible one knowing the people involved.

Luke was never good at seeing things that were right in front of him, Ben. He looked to find purpose in things that were dead for so long. Instead, he couldn’t see that his mission as an uncle and as a Jedi was to help you. _I could see that_. Any fool could see that.’

Then all the people who mattered were fools. How can this wound feel so fresh and so old at the same time? There was a time in Ben’s childhood when Lando, Han, Luke and Chewie had been giants, heroes in his naive eyes. When they would promise him a future of adventures with the tales of their trips. When they could do no wrong in his eyes. When following in their footsteps meant he would also always be right. 

How wrong he was. How wrong they all were. 

He shrugs, not knowing how to respond to that. Regrets are certainly not a scarce resource in his family.

‘You could have come to me. I would have helped you with no questions asked,’ Lando continues.

‘I didn’t want to hide,’ Ben counters. 

‘That’s why you changed your name and put on a mask?’

‘Well, I was wrong.’ _Obviously_. He bites his tongue against finishing the thought, but the sarcasm drips heavily in his tone anyway.

Lando looks at the boy he once knew. He once loved. He’s a man now, so tall and strong, but his vulnerable face looking down tugs at Lando’s heartstrings, reminding him of the child that used to run and jump into his arms. The quiet and curious boy that was too easy to overlook. Until he fell prey to his worst instincts. 

Until he became a storm nobody could look away from. 

‘You have to do the right thing now, kid. If you want that girl, you have to do the right thing. No more running around with masks. You have to know what kind of man you want to be.’

‘I don’t know what - that is,’ Ben replies, torn by the knowledge that whatever lies ahead in his future can’t be _the good thing_ for her. Doubting that he is deserving of her obvious commitment to help him.

Lando steps closer to him, understanding Ben’s uncertainty in himself.

‘We are never worthy, but you’ll have to be,’ the older man says, squeezing his nephew’s shoulder. 

‘You will be,’ he says encouragingly, before turning back to the cruiser’s command deck and starting the hyperspace sequence. 

Ben Solo lays back down and lets the tide sweep him under again with a last conscious thought.

_A good man._

\--

As the sounds of the forest of Ajan Kloss come alive around her and the light streaming through her windows turns from purple hues to bright yellow, Rey feels the anguish of the nightmare recede. She doesn’t know for how long she has been resting her forehead on her knees, but as the importance of being strong today slowly takes shape in her mind, she feels the need to push herself into motion. The camp is still quiet and she checks the time to see she had only slept four standard hours. Her mind feels foggy with tiredness, but she knows she won’t be able to sleep any longer.

After talking with Lando, Rey searches for what information she can find on Leia’s family. Most of the history related to Padme Amidala Naberrie has been deleted or may never have existed in the New Republic archives. Most of the existing entries don’t make much sense. She quietly asks forgiveness from Leia and with a few tries, she manages to splice into their previous General’s personal archives stored in R2D2, with great complaints from the droid. The files are encrypted. Another wall. _Damn it!_

Rey takes the very familiar path of her training track, feeling the need of centering herself in the routine she and Leia established. As she pulls out one of the droid orbs and activates it, the memories of her master guiding her flood back. Meditation has never been something she could easily slip into, however, the best way she has found to cope with unsettled thoughts is getting her body moving.

As soon as she starts warming up and her muscles feel the burn of exertion, her thoughts are inevitably drawn to all of the times she’s had to haggle for something on Jakku. It’s what they would maybe call negotiation in more elevated circles, but it comes down to the same thing. 

She is fighting the training droid, skipping and jumping in all the right places, pushing and twisting her tired body, letting her muscle memory lead while memories of her past life flood back. Bargaining on Jakku was simple. They could give you something you wanted and you had to give them something in return, just not how much they were asking for it. She was good at that. She was one of the only people that had ever bought their freedom back from Unkar Plutt. Perhaps the only one ever to gain a protected status from him.

However, they need to be willing to give it. They need to be asking for something. There were times when she found things that nobody saw as valuable. When she had to convince, but this is the part where her experience is lacking. She’s not stupid to believe that Plutt saw her as anything else but a commodity. He coveted what she could bring, and isolating her from the others with her _protected_ status was the most beneficial for him. Memories of all of the times she had felt conned and cheated by the loathsome alien spike up the old anger within her and, once again, she feels her patience slipping away as she strikes against the droid, shifting from defensively escaping it’s attack to a violent offensive. 

Breathing loudly, Rey sits on the ground next to a tree, suddenly very aware that her body has not yet recovered. Battling to catch her breath, her face is already red and sweaty even though by this point in her routine, she would normally feel like it requires no effort at all. She thinks that what Leia has taught her was never about specific ways to deal with things. She always aimed for Rey to find her own answers. And here, now, Rey can’t find the answer on her own, not with the limited time she has. She pushes herself up and continues the rest of the route.

Coming back from the training, her muscles feel like they have turned into liquid. Boarding the Falcon, she carefully avoids the few people that seem to be waking up and is grateful that most are still sleeping off the late-night celebrations. She knows she must leave before the command wakes up and they summon everyone for a status meeting. Last night was for celebrations, but today they will need to make new plans. Plans that will, most certainly, involve her.

She removes her training clothes, takes a wet cloth and wipes the sweat off her body and dresses in her beige jersey and roughspun dark green tunic before punching in C3PO’s summoning sequence into her terminal.

‘Master Rey!’ C3PO calls once she comes in the ship lounge. ‘What a lovely day we have today -’

‘I have a question about Naboo for you,’ she cuts him off, hoping to shorten what is bound to be a very long traipse into his improperly indexed database.

‘Oh, of course! My archives are not up to date, I’m afraid, but what a delightful planet. Naboo is a bountiful planet in the Mid Rim…’

Hearing the noise, Chewie comes out of his compartment just as Rey starts the uphill battle of ‘theoretically’ inquiring about the rules of Naboo. It takes a long time, with the Wookie often laughing at her attempts to keep C3PO focused as the droid keeps getting lost in minutiae about the protocol and intricate bureaucracy of the planet. But as she is sifting through his knowledge, something he mentions causes a spark in Rey’s brain. 

_This is it!_ This is something she can use. 

She makes copies of those files, and transfers them to her datapad and sends the droid away. Rey goes back and forth through the files she collected from C3PO and what other information she can find on Naboo, and on the Amidala family. She tries a few sequences to break the encryption on the files, but they all seem useless. The camp outside is now almost fully awake and preparations for breakfast are starting so she asks Chewie to prepare for takeoff while she takes a few notes of her own in the datapad, marking questions and shaping the beginning of a plan. 

‘You’re leaving.’ Finn’s voice breaks her concentration and she jumps, surprised that he came in and she didn’t notice. 

‘Yes,’ Rey says firmly, but apologetically. 

‘To meet with _him_?’ Finn asks, not keeping any of his contempt out of his tone. 

‘Yes,’ she answers cooly. 

‘Poe will have questions.’

‘You don’t have to answer for me.’

‘You have 48 standard hours. Then I’m telling him,’ Finn says, and she tries and fails to keep away the hurt his words cause, when only last evening he had spoken about her not having to face everything on her own. It seems like Finn has had his own early morning ruminations.

Her friend turns on his heel without a goodbye, making it very clear that where Ben is concerned, she _is_ on her own. 

She straps herself in, getting ready for the few-hour hyperspace ride from the Outer Rim to the Chommell Sector. 

As she inputs their route into the navigator, she says a final prayer that her barely-there plan is going to work.

\--

As the Millenium Falcon zooms through the hyperlanes taking them to Naboo, Rey pores over her datapad. She can sense an unfamiliar unease coming from the Wookie settled in the co-pilot seat before he interrupts her with a quiet rumble.

Chewie asks her, maybe for the first time since they have known each other, what her plan is.

Rey understands that his question doesn’t refer to _today_ , but to a larger question on what Ben's future is. If she thinks he is allowed one.

‘I just want to help him. He’s become - important to me. I will do my best, but there will be things that will depend solely on him.’

Chewie growls softly that he can’t pretend he understands what is going on between them, but he feels he should thank her on behalf of Han.

Memories of a dark-haired boy riding on the shoulders of the tall Wookie flash distantly in Rey’s eyes as the sudden sadness coming from her steadfast friend is almost overwhelming. Tears flood both of their eyes and they look away. Chewie shakes his head gruffly and tucks his sorrow back inside as Rey returns to her datapad.

Rey is running through the encryption sequences of Leia’s archives over and over again, knowing instinctively that they hold a key to what she’s missing. She had never been a good splicer, but much of the imperial functioning equipment she has managed to retrieve from the Jakku wreckage was of much higher value if it could actually be used. So she had learned how to remove the previous programming and either wipe or reset them. This, however, is different. She can feel she is close, but the answer is escaping like sand through her fingers.

She tries to visualize the numbers again and focuses on the sequences intently, knowing she is one or two steps away from solving the problem. As she shuffles and reshuffles them in her mind and on the screen, she can feel a curious prod at the back of her awareness. Her insistent and determined pursuit was not left unnoticed by Ben, who feels more present and more tangible the closer they get to Naboo.

There are no words exchanged, but as she feels him watching the numbers alongside her, he moves two of them in a place that she didn’t think of before, blinded by what had worked in the algorithm so far. 

The documents open and Rey releases an excited yelp. 

She searches through the files, zeroing in on Leia’s own notes on the fractions of information she had managed to collect from old Imperial archives. But it doesn’t matter, as summary as the information is, it does the trick. Now she knows how to make the diplomats of Naboo want what she has to offer. 

However, she still needs to figure out what exactly is it that she _can_ offer.

\--

As if he can feel Rey getting closer, Ben starts being alert and feeling more like himself. He is amused at her headstrong and impatient attempts of cracking an algorithm - he has no idea what for. He’s never been able to see her thoughts so clearly and it takes almost no effort to see the numbers when he closes his eyes. He can’t help but be impressed by the work she’s done with it so far. For a while, he doesn’t think there is anything for him to contribute until he notices something. From the bubbling excitement, he figures it was what she needed.

Without her presence, his thoughts come back to his discussion with Lando, to doing what is right by her, knowing full well the extent of the hardships she has been through. He is at a loss of what those actions are and wonders what would a good man do, coming again and again to the same answer. Ever since she came into his life, he had tried to pull her away from her path and into his. Instead, they were both drawn into each other’s orbits. He thinks of the life he could have had, had he chosen another path, of how it would have been if he hadn’t ever become Kylo Ren. 

But he was set onto that path when they collided with each other on Takodana. Ever since he found his Master, his uncle, standing above him with a lightsaber, he was bound to that railroad. The snare was of his own making but Palpatine had defined it as immutable. His only choice. As much as he tried to take her for his own and regress into some sort of illusion of their ruling together, that was not what either of them wanted. But Rey threw him off that path. She cut his bounds on Kef Bir and showed him that they weren’t holding him back at all. The feeling of standing up, free and full of her life force had been dizzying. At that moment, running to Exegol, it was easy knowing what was the right thing to do. His sole purpose was to take the blow for her, without any expectation of making it out alive.

And yet, here he is, living and breathing. He had to choose to stay for her, but a good man would stay away, when they have done so many terrible things. A good man wouldn’t have done all of those things to begin with. 

He shifts the same thoughts round and round, helplessly, with no conclusion until they are interrupted by Rey. His heart leaps right into his throat at the sound of her voice coming through the comm’s of the cruiser. He hadn't even realized they had arrived. Lando’s eyes move to the holoscreen with Ben’s vitals and then smirks at the young man. Ben blushes perhaps the reddest he had in the past twenty years, embarrassed that he feels so oafish and crude around her. 

They are discussing the next steps until her voice is directed at him.

‘Ben, if we do this, there may be no way back,’ Rey says, but her question is clear to everyone within earshot. _Is this what you want?_

It doesn’t seem to him like he should be given the choice. However, there she is, giving him the choice. Ben knows he doesn’t want to be the kind of man that runs away. 

‘Yes,’ he says to the unspoken question.

‘Should we follow you down?’ Lando asks.

‘No, I have a feeling it will be better if you wait in orbit.’

‘Be careful, kid, she’s a feisty one.’

‘She? Who?’ Rey asks, confused.

‘The Queen.’

‘The Queen? I am meeting with the Queen of Naboo? _Lando!_ I thought I would have an audience with a bunch of diplomats.’ Rey stands up abruptly, causing the datapad to slide off her lap and fall to the floor with a loud crash. 

‘Fragging _ugh_!’ she swears loudly. 

‘She _is_ the highest diplomat of Naboo. Nobody better to ask on that pretty rock than her.‘ Lando explains himself.

‘And you just forgot to mention it?’

‘Would it have helped to know?’ Lando smirks. Rey sighs, suddenly realizing how come Han and Lando were such good friends. 

‘No. How did you even-’ Rey says, sitting down and rubbing her face tiredly. 

‘Leia. Her name still holds a lot of sway, but it will only bring you as far as through the door. The rest you’ll have to do on your own. I hope you have a plan.’

‘I have one.’ _Barely,_ she thinks.

‘Good. May the Force be with you, kid.’ 

‘Yep,’ She answers sarcastically, but she really, truly hopes it will be.

\---

There are places Rey has been to in the past year that have given her a feeling of awe. Leaving Jakku, it seems like almost any other planet has something beautiful and impressive to pride itself with. From the green forest of Takodana, to the cavernous mountains of Ryloth, to the lush and dense jungle of Ajan Kloss. However, nothing compares to the sight coming before her eyes after she breaks the atmosphere of Naboo and Theed Royal Palace comes into view. 

The sandstone spires and rotundas seem to have been erected directly into the side of the steep cliff jutting up straight from the giant lake, with great waterfalls lining the cliff face on each side. The tall towers, some large and impressive, some narrow and sharp with their green-tiled cupolas stand in the largest planet-bound building Rey has ever seen.

As she approaches the Theed Hangar, she sees below a vast garden sprawling in looping patterns of lush greenery. Rey rearranges her roughspun tunic, combs through her hair with her fingers and rubs her face in a last attempt to clean any residual smudges of dirt. She has never felt less qualified to deal with a situation in her entire life. 

An escort is waiting for her arrival in the hangar and proceeds to lead her through the cavernous corridors of the palace. The walls and floors are coated in beautiful pink and pale blue stonework that shimmers and shines in the afternoon sun streaming through the tall windows. Delicate sculptures of majestic Zalorian rock-lions and other graceful beasts and winged seraphs adorn every corner, staircase and awning. As they seem to be approaching the front of the palace, a wide, busy promenade comes into view through the open windows. But Rey doesn’t have time to admire the great archway and colossal statues framing the gates. A tall door gilded in intricate patterns of beskar and gold opens and she is ushered into the vaulted atrium that is the throne room of Theed Royal Palace.

Her admiration of the craftsmanship comes to a halt as Rey’s full attention is drawn to the petite woman sitting behind a large desk surrounded by members of the court, dressed in a variation of the same outfits she has seen in her research of the planet. A bright red heavy coat, the helmet-like crown and white makeup make her seem as immovable and eternal as one of the statues decorating the palace.

‘Her Majesty Queen Nirmena Aikmerre Foll. In audience with Rey of the Resistance.’

‘The New Jedi Rey. Leia’s protege. We thank you for your great accomplishment against the enemies of freedom.’

‘It is the Resistance’s merit, not mine.’ 

‘Those who stand for freedom and democracy stand with us.’

 _And yet, you didn’t stand with us at all._ Rey thinks bitterly, biting her tongue, remembering all of Leia’s sleepless nights, looking for allies. Poe’s diplomatic missions going nowhere. The deafening silence when they asked for help in Crait.

‘Leia is dead,’ Rey replies, hoping that it sounds as much of a rebuke to their ears as it does to hers.

‘We are sorry for your loss. She will be missed,’ the Queen says, but Rey keeps quiet, finding herself in a sudden need to swallow her anger down.

The Queen continues, regarding Rey’s sudden choice to stop speaking curiously. 

‘You have asked for an audience with the Council of Naboo today. I am sure it was not so we exchange opinions about democracy.’

‘I have come here today to ask for asylum on your planet for a key ally of the Resistance. He was instrumental in helping us defeat the Final Order. He stood by me when I faced Palpatine. If it were not for him, we would all be plunged into the deepest darkness today.’

‘Who is this hero you speak of?‘

‘His name is Ben Solo.’

A deafening silence follows his name being spoken. It is not common knowledge in the Galaxy that Kylo Ren and Ben Solo are one in the same person, but Naboo is a planet of diplomacy and a keeper of history. It is very clear from all of their reactions they are well aware who Rey is talking about. 

‘You have put us all at risk by bringing the enemy of peace to our door.’ 

‘He turned, he saved me, he fought with me. He deserves a chance for a fair trial.’

‘A fair trial -’ Queen Nirmena starts and her voice loses the monotonous tone she has spoken in so far, her tone no longer dispassionate. It is fleeting, but it takes a few long moments before she speaks again in the formal tone of the royalty.

‘The war is not over. This would terminate our status as neutral and would bring the wrath of the First Order upon us. Protecting one of their deserters? Siding with their number one enemy? We will not put our own people at risk to shelter the First Order leader, we are a peaceful planet with no army, _Rey from Jakku_.’

This, the way she says Rey’s name, mentioning her humble origins, is exactly what Rey expected from people like her. Shut away in gilded castles, pretending to be protectors of peace and democracy while they think they are above everyone else.

‘It is interesting then, how many of the figureheads of these wars seem to come from this very peaceful planet,’ Rey says in a low tone, but her voice rings through the hall all the same.

It’s a big mistake. Rey can feel the decision forming in the Queen's mind as soon as the words come out of her mouth. _Your request for asylum is denied._

So Rey plays the wildest card she has, prompted by a sudden push that she has come to know as the Force guiding her.

‘Many know Naboo as the birthplace of Sheev Palpatine. Which makes me, as his granddaughter, a descendant of Naboo as well.’ The words sound surreal to her ears. A secret that only her and Ben know is now known by seven strangers. And she gave it up freely. 

It’s as if a weight she didn’t know she was carrying is lifted off her shoulders.

The revelation is met with stunned silence as the seven people standing in front of Rey are calculating the best way to proceed, unsure whether they are in danger, or if she is lying. Rey takes advantage of the pause to continue with the knowledge she had garnered from Leia’s archives, what she should have said from the very beginning, before her anger got the better of her.

‘Very few knew of the origins of Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa. But they are descendants of this planet too. Luke defeated Palpatine three decades ago with the help of Anakin, his father and husband of Queen Padme Amidala. Fewer are aware that it was not Luke that vanquished the Emperor, but his father, Darth Vader who perished himself from the action. But he died in the Light, as Anakin Skywalker, redeemed and permitted to join the Force as the master Jedis of old. 

And now, in this war, I stood against Palpatine with Ben Solo by my side. Both of our grandfathers have ties to this planet. Ben Solo through Queen Padme Amidala and I, through the grandfather that tried to kill me only yesterday, Sheev Palpatine.’

She has their full attention now.

‘What I am asking you is to change the story. Drown out the memory of the hatred and violence caused by the Emperor, Darth Vader, Snoke, the First Order - with a story of hope. Ben Solo turned. 

The war isn’t over. But we stand a chance now. The message has been heard, but we now need to make it louder. You will set an example of forgiveness and hope to all of those that want to switch sides but fear retribution.’

And finally, she delivers the request that, according to their laws, they are bound to accept and that C3PO cautioned is only to be used after establishing common ground and framing it as a common interest, not like she is forcing their hand.

‘All citizens of Naboo have the right to be protected by Naboo’s laws. As children of Naboo, I request protection for Ben Solo to stand a fair trial.’ 

Then, the lie to soften this blow. A bluff.

‘In return, I pledge that Naboo will be protected by the Resistance against the First Order.’

‘Are you telling me that the Resistance is on board with this? With Leia dead, that makes Poe Dameron the acting General. Why not hide him yourselves?’ The queen calls her bluff, her voice slipping again into what is probably her normal way of speaking.

‘The Resistance has no jurisdiction to protect war criminals. We are not a government.’

‘Why go through all of this effort, Rey of Jakku?’

‘I and you and all the Galaxy have a life debt to him. I won’t stand by while he pays with his life for all of the First Order’s crimes.’

The petite woman regards Rey cooly, measuring her. 

‘Very well. You are permitted temporary passage to the ancestral home of Queen Padme Amidala-Naberrie. You can let them know while you wait outside for our deliberation,’ the Queen says, dismissing Rey with a gesture of her hand.

Rey is led into an anti-chamber, uncertain if this is a win or if she just dug Ben’s grave. She takes out the commlink and calls the Falcon frequency.

‘Do you think we should wait then? Until they decide what to do?’ she asks Lando after recalling most of her exchange with the Queen, keeping the rough parts to herself.

‘It’s harder to take the vulptice out of the porg nest if he’s already in. These people are all about procedure and formalities. It will take them weeks to decide what laws to follow and what laws to break so that they extradite him. How many people were in that room?’

‘Seven.’

‘If seven know, then the whole galaxy will know quicker than you think. Now we have to follow through.’

‘What if they say no?’

‘One step at a time, kid. Today, there will be shelter.’

-

Rey waits for a few hours in the antechamber, alternating between nervously looking out the window, pacing the room and sometimes napping jolted on the seat. When they call her back inside, the Queen wastes no time in relaying her conditions.

‘These are our terms, Rey of Jakku. I will only authorize the asylum request once I have agreed with Poe Dameron on the details regarding Naboo’s protection. 

He is to present himself in these quarters in the following standard week for negotiations. 

Without the clear agreement of both parties on these terms, we will hand Ben Solo back to the Resistance or to any authorized government that claims him.’ The Queen reveals the pieces on her chessboard.

_Check._

‘Ben Solo will be confined to the Amidala-Naberrie house and grounds. A droid will be assigned to keep guard and a device will be implanted to alert us if he breaks the rules of his confinement. 

The communication during his stay will be under surveillance and done only through approved and monitored devices.

If he conspires against Naboo…’ the Queen is continuing with the terms of his stay, listing all the conditions that will remove protection, but Rey is too lost in her thoughts, wondering how will she ever be able to convince Poe Dameron to all of this and getting the sinking feeling that this was all a terrible mistake.

\--

Both Lando’s cruiser and the Millenium Falcon land on the overgrown landing strip of the Padme Naberrie house in Varykino. Ben decides to stand up and use the crutches resting against the side of his bed, too proud to be carried while conscious, even though his leg and ribs protest against the movement. His leg is still encased at a bent angle in a heavy bacta cast that makes moving around difficult.

Once they are inside, Lando says his goodbyes and wishes Ben good luck before flying back to Ajan Kloss. Chewie quietly moves the treatment bed Lando paid a fortune for to the captain of the Chimera and brings it into the sunroom of the house. He supports Ben’s arm as he climbs onto it and then steps back to watch the young man. While Ben is hooking himself to the several standard medical devices to take the prescribed treatment for his injuries, he is nervously aware of the Wookie’s presence. 

Chewie moves and sits down on a chair and seems to be frozen, staring at the floor for the longest time before growling a low warning into the quiet of the room. _If you hurt her._

He doesn’t continue the thought, but Ben knows full well that he is out of chances with Chewbacca and at the following misstep he will finish what he tried to do on Star Killer base when he shot his bowcaster. 

Ben nods.

With this issue cleared, Chewie goes back on the Falcon and flies to Theed to wait for Rey, leaving Ben to slump down on the bed, the short walk into the house having exhausted most of his resources. The sun moves from its point at high-noon lower and lower, the light of the afternoon casting long shadows in the sunroom. A small alien enters the room at some point, introducing herself as Nob and explaining they have set up the bedroom downstairs and that they will be leaving now to their master’s house. Ben wonders noncommittally when did she even come in, before his thoughts run back to the same circles he’s been threading with no clear resolution. 

His reverie is interrupted by the sound of the Falcon returning, and he struggles to slide off the bed, clumsily balancing his weight on the crutch and rushing to welcome Rey at the entrance. She’s already on the landing when he opens the door and, as his eyes sweep up and down her body, hungrily and happily taking in her face, her presence, a droid comes around her to stand by her side. Ben looks at it, slightly confused by it but doesn’t comment, standing aside to let both of them in. 

‘How are your injuries?’

‘Oh, they’ve been taken care of. Now they only need time,’ he says. Rey swallows, suddenly feeling tongue-tied, unable to make this small talk while he doesn’t know what she had just agreed to with his own freedom and life. 

‘Thank the stars for bacta, my life would certainly have been much grimmer without it,’ he continues inanely, in an uncharacteristic attempt to fill up the silence, thinking that the discomfort he perceives is because of him.

Rey looks down suddenly, the uncomfortable memory of her life on Jakku flooding back. There was no such thing as bacta for her growing up. Not even the cheap patches were ever wasted on someone like her.

‘Hey - did I say something wrong?’ he asks quietly, stopping in the middle of the hallway.

‘No, not at all. It’s just been a very hard few days. A lot has happened. I feel - overwhelmed.’

‘You can say that again,’ he replies, but as he senses her continued nervousness he tries ‘Rey…’

‘Where is here?’ she interrupts him, continuing her walk and looking around the beautiful house and out the big windows overlooking the lush vegetation. The lake is sparkling with the final rays of sunset, lighting the whole house in pink hues.

‘We’re on Naboo,’ he answers dumbly. Kicking himself mentally the moment the great observation comes out of his mouth.

She rolls her eyes. ‘Yes, I know. But what is _this_ house?’ she asks, even if she knows.

‘Ah, of course,’ he shakes his head at the misunderstanding and follows her slowly ‘My grandmother lived here. I guess my mother inherited it, but she never came to live here. She didn’t have good associations with her parents.’

‘But you’ve been here before,’ she states, in an effort to keep the conversation going, even though their words are stilted and they’re dancing around the enormous issues they still have to deal with. 

‘Yes - I came here in the past year. Sometimes.’

‘Do you think - Is it safe?’

‘I am not entirely certain. But Naboo is a peaceful planet and I think I am at least safe when it comes to its people.’

‘I’m also from Naboo, I guess,’ she says, looking forlornly out the window, at the steep forest-covered mountains on the other side of the house. Covered in so much green that not so long ago she would have been enthralled by the sight. 

‘Yes, yes you are.’ They stare at each other across the distance they’ve suddenly put in between, with the knowledge of yet another thing they share. 

‘You took the flowers off,’ he says in that soft voice he uses with her, the voice that more than a year ago told her she’s not alone. His eyes are taking in her face and her hair and she feels a flush coming up in her cheeks at his attention. 

‘Yeah, it was this silly thing they wanted to do. Have a party for Leia’s death.’ His face falls at her words and she kicks herself mentally for the careless way she mentioned his mother’s funeral. 

‘I’m sorry. You should have been there,’ she whispers.

He starts walking again and leads her into a high room with several mismatched pieces of furniture that speak of old wealth backed against the walls. 

‘It’s okay,’ he says, trying to play down the hurt. ‘She would have definitely wanted people to party instead of a funeral.’ He smiles at Rey a little, a minute tug at the corners of his lips, but she notices it all the same. He pulls two chairs to the middle of the room using the Force.

‘She would have.’ Rey snorts, thinking of Leia on a good day. How she used to be so intimidated by her. Until she actually got to know the old woman and had learned _plenty_ about what Leia thought constituted a good time when she was young.

 _Don’t go through the whole crew, it makes things awkward._ She told her once, causing her to blush to the roots of her hair.

‘What - How come I get to stay here?’ Ben interrupts her train of thought nervously.

No more dancing around the topic then. She moves to sit on one of the armchairs and he shuffles awkwardly, skipping on one foot to take the seat across from her.

‘The Queen of Naboo agreed to grant you asylum.’ She takes a deep breath and she launches into relaying the terms of his stay. She can see his face slowly draining of colour as his impassive mask falls into place. She explains the purpose of the droid and the requirement for the implant. He is quiet when he sits down so that the droid performs the procedure. 

The droid implants the device into his shoulder and drones into a matter-of-fact voice. ‘The HARR357 type implant is heat and circulation activated. The prisoner shall not go further than a 500 m radius from the droid. Under no circumstances should the prisoner extract or destroy the implant. If these conditions are not fulfilled, the prisoner will be considered to be breaking the terms of his arrest.’

 _The prisoner_. Rey’s stomach drops. There goes the whole ‘asylum’ idea.

A chill runs down Rey’s spine as Ben seems to not be there at all anymore. She doesn’t like his sudden submissiveness, it reminds her of him, on his knees, in Snoke’s throne room. She hates that he is a prisoner now, again, no matter how good they can make his stay, his freedom is forfeited.

‘It’s just a standard droid,’ she tries to justify, but her argument fizzles out.

‘What have you promised in return?’ His eyes are on her, suddenly very present. 

_Isn’t that the one ton of beskar question?_

‘Nothing _you_ will have to give, outside of compliance with their rules.’

‘Rey,’ He says, as authoritatively as he can manage, feeling her averting the question.

‘Okay - I don’t know. I mean, I haven’t figured things out. This is temporary. I will -’ Inadvertently, a huge yawn takes over and she makes a terrible noise with it. His eyes soften again, a small smile playing at the corner of his lips.

‘I think...maybe, I should have rested better first.’ She feels like the exhaustion crash is coming soon.

‘I understand. You can go rest, Rey. Please, don’t feel like you owe anything to me.’ _You’ve already done too much._ She feels the urge to giggle, thinking of the fact that he brought her back from the dead. Her brain is certainly starting to malfunction from the exhaustion.

‘Is there a place I could sleep here?’

‘O-of course! Yes! You can take my room, I barely used it. I will ask them to give me another.’

He walks her down the hall and comes in to gather a pillow and a blanket for himself from one of the chest drawers, knowing full well he’s not going to disturb anyone at this hour to open the rooms upstairs and that he’ll go sleep in the treatment bed.

‘If there’s anything you need...’ he turns to face her, his face still impassive and aloof, and there it is again, that godforsaken distance they seem to keep putting in between each other. 

She steps closer.

‘So, do you usually pass out when girls kiss you or just with me?’ she asks, her cheeks a bit red, her face shy but brave. 

The question takes him off-guard and his face moulds into one of surprise. Then, he starts laughing, the guffaw coming unbidden through his chest and shaking his broken ribs. He winces in pain, holding his injured side.

‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry! Don’t laugh.’ She moves and takes the pillow and blanket from him to drop them to the floor. She brings her hands to his face and he leans into her touch again, as he did a day ago.

‘Yes, it’s a curse. They drop like flies,’ he answers her question very seriously, albeit his voice seems slightly airy. It’s her turn to laugh.

‘I haven’t kissed too many girls, Rey. But believe me when I tell you that I wish I would have kept a better grip on my consciousness.’ 

‘I know what you did,’ she changes topics abruptly and he looks a bit confused, and perhaps a bit hurt, not knowing what she’s referring to.

‘I was dead. I didn’t remember it right away. But I know I had gone and you brought me back.’

He doesn’t say anything, the look of pain and sorrow at the memory answer enough.

‘You could have died. Doing that.’ Her gaze is steel.

‘I didn’t,’ he lies just a little, knowing full well that he had already decided before Anakin appeared and would have done it even if it killed him. 

‘How?’

‘I had help from Anakin, my grandfather. He kept me there, with you.’

‘Thank you.’

‘I think it’s me who should thank _you_.’

‘Was that it? Returning the favour?’

‘You know it’s not,’ he says, too afraid just yet to put the magnitude of his feelings into words. ‘May I touch you?’ he asks, wanting to feel her again, alive and well.

‘Yes,’ she breathes out.

Rey expects him to kiss her, but instead, he pads towards her, balancing on one crutch and wraps his arms around her to pull her into his chest. His hands come to rest on her, palms so wide they almost cover her back entirely. Once her cheek is pressed into his chest and she’s tucked under his arms, he breathes out shakily, letting her warmth wash over him and reassure him that Exegol was a nightmare he can put behind him. She listens to the wild sound of his heart against her ear, beating so loudly that she can feel it bumping her on her temple. She raises her own arms to hug him around his middle.

They sit in the embrace for as long as they can, breathing each other in, letting the nervousness at the new contact subside and be replaced with the comfort and calm they find in each other. The Force hums quietly around them as if it is contended with their stillness. 

‘Rey...My feelings for you haven’t changed,‘ he speaks into the crown of her hair.

‘Then, stay with me tonight. Please. I will do my best not to touch your injured leg.’

He breaks away from the embrace to look at her face, dumbfounded that she would worry about that. Like he could give a damn about pain when she just asked him to share her bed. 

‘I would like that,’ he nods and grabs his crutch again to move towards the bed.

‘Are you hungry?’ he asks, turning as if to make for the door, knowing full well that he has no idea if there is any food in the house.

Rey wants to joke that she’s always hungry, but she has a feeling it’s not a good joke to make with him, not yet at least. However, right now, she is too tired to even eat, so she shakes her head and helps him put the crutch away.

They’re a bit awkward getting ready for bed. She’s so exhausted she just removes her tunic and belt, leaving her undershirt and trousers on. She sees him struggle to remove his overshirt and rushes to help, helping him to sit down on the bed and pull it over his head. His cheeks get just the faintest twinge of red as thoughts of other scenarios where she would be removing his clothes come to mind but he looks away and pretends the reason why he needs to turn away is to shuffle under the covers. 

She gets under as well and pulls near to him, not knowing exactly how but wanting to be close.

‘You could have died,’ she whispers again, this time in anguish, remembering the dream and the very real bereavement she felt at his death.

‘I didn’t know what else to do.’ He whispers back, not wanting to ever say it out loud. _You were dead._ Never wanting to recall how her lifeless body felt in his arms. How his heart shattered to see her eyes glass-like and empty, staring at nothing. How what was left of his soul was torn to shreds to see her gone.

‘Never do that again.’ She lifts her face to look at him.

‘I’ll try.’ He tells her, knowing that he would if he had to save her again.

She stretches just a tiny bit more and she’s kissing him again, pulling together all the fractured splintered pieces in his heart. She is so soft and sweet and this time he dares to move and deepen the kiss, to feel her hot little breath in his mouth and her gasp when he tentatively swipes his tongue against her lower lip. 

So alive, so vital. His Rey.

And true to his thoughts, she starts her own assault, opening her mouth and fiercely pushing him back against his pillow. He does his best to hug her and, for the first time since she blinked back to life, to fully accept that she’s here, that they both made it. It’s as if she can hear his every thought because soon her breaths shudder against his lips, her hands gripping his face a little too tight as her chest starts heaving heavy breaths and she is sobbing in his embrace.

‘No-ooo pass-pass-ing o-oout it seee-eems,’ she says in between sobs, as if that’s what they were doing, testing his ability to stay conscious through her kisses.

‘Not just yet,’ he answers smiling, just as fat tears slide from his eyes and drop onto her and the bedding.

They press their foreheads together as they both cry, their tears dropping freely on each other’s faces in a baptism of this new life they have been gifted with. That they have gifted each other. As the wave of emotion crests and ebbs, the exhaustion takes over their bodies and they calm together, their breaths quieting down. They slowly find a way to arrange their limbs around his injuries before falling into the deepest sleep either of them has experienced in years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew that was long. I can promise you chapters are not always going to be this long. There are a lot of pieces that need to be put into place for the Resistance plot and for Ben’s protection. I promise that I am not turning this fic into a procedural drama about Ben’s trial or negotiations hehe, but I wanted to detail Rey’s intervention with the queen as character development for Rey as well. She didn’t do terribly, but she had some pretty good cards this time around. However, in order for this to work she will need to learn how to play the diplomacy game and take her time and put her chess pieces in place first. 
> 
> Can you believe she just told them about Palpatine? Me neither!  
> Ben Solo is a sputtering dolt around girls, isn’t he? *Teehee*
> 
> The next chapter is the long-awaited fluff I promised and some Resistance action.
> 
> Reviews are food for my soul. Come say hi on Twitter @poopsiekittens.


	4. I Feel It Too

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Do you want this or not?” Rey stops her pacing, too tired to fight. 
> 
> Ben looks away, struggling to keep every muscle in his body tight and coiled, holding himself in place.
> 
> Her legs are shaking, anger and rejection burning hot, but Rey knows she has to make her position crystal clear. “You may be content with being some sort of martyr, but I am not content with getting scraps of the things that I want. Not anymore, not with you.”
> 
> “Ask me-” he starts, but his voice catches on the lump in his throat, “-ask me what I did in the past year.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note! This is not a new chapter, I am reposting because apparently notifications haven’t been sent out. Apologies for the inconvenience.
> 
> My English was seriously malfunctioning while writing this, if anything makes sense, it's because of @AdamGFerguson beta-ing this chapter.
> 
> This is 9000 words so grab a snack.

The morning after defeating the Final Order stretches long and lazy for the Resistance. Jannah wakes up with a start, disoriented by the humid heat sticking to her skin and the strange bird noises filtering through the open window. For over a decade and a half, she had woken up at the same time every morning to cold, dry air and to the mechanical hum and whir of a Star Destroyer. Even though that has changed, the few months she spent hiding on Kef Bir have not broken the habit of waking up early. 

When she opens her eyes, the other bunk in the hut that belongs to a girl named Rose is empty and she is glad to have the privacy for this moment of unease and doubt. It had felt good to be here. The day before, it felt like this is where she was supposed to be, but now she is uncertain of what exactly is she supposed to do. The day before, she felt like she _had_ to help Finn. It defied any logic and even any sense of preservation, but it felt like something was pushing her in the right direction - so she followed. _The Force_ , Finn said.

But there were also things that scared her yesterday, things that the frenzy and adrenaline of combat made easy to disregard in the moment. Waking up this morning, that feeling of rightness is gone and she can’t help the panic bubbling to the surface. 

The door opens slowly with a long whining creak, and Rose tiptoes inside, grimacing at the disturbing sound of the rusted door hinge.

“Good morning,” Rose relaxes and greets her cheerfully when she notices Jannah is awake.

“Good morning.” She sits up in her bed and swings her legs down to stand.

“Oh, please stay in bed. There is no reason to get up yet. I think it will be at least a couple of hours until breakfast is ready.”

“What about you?”

“I am just gathering a report of the losses we suffered and going through all the messages we got since yesterday. With Leia gone-’ she stops for a moment to rearrange her features ‘I should do it.”

“Could I come?”

“Of course. Sure, it’s boring work. Nothing like what you guys pulled off yesterday, with the horses. I mean, that was genius. And taking down the antenna. Page would have loved that.” Rose is babbling.

Jannah measures the girl and feels embarrassed at the obvious awe in her tone. Rose is a commander in the Resistance and from her understanding, she and Finn probably owe her their lives for coming back for them the day before. 

“I want to come.” Jannah stands up and they start making their way to the command centre. 

“Who is Page?” she asks. Her heart falls to the bottom of her stomach when Rose tells her that Page died the year before with a watery smile on her face. But as the girl continues to talk animatedly about her sister and skipping through stories of their childhood, her eyes bright with tears and an immovable smile on her face, Jannah finds herself laughing and is actually happy to have asked.

\--

As what was supposed to be a noon briefing slides slowly into an afternoon one, Poe Dameron is becoming increasingly restless. All through the morning, he has been having trouble finding his subordinates, as mostly none of them returned to their posts at an acceptable time.

Last night wasn’t exactly a revel, but he knows that everyone needs time to depressurize after what happened the day before. So, he reigns in his frustration that his subordinates are missing the fact that they haven’t won the war yet. Nonetheless, he finds it is much harder to control the weary feeling that has settled in his bones during the night. Leia is gone, truly gone. And now, it is up to him and Finn to continue the work of leading the Resistance, defeating the First Order and then, figuring out what would come next after that.

One step at a time, Leia would say. Make sure you live through today first, and then you get to worry about tomorrow. 

Going through the camp, he can’t help but notice the absence of the Millenium Falcon, and of both Chewie and Rey. When he bumps into Finn, the younger man’s mood seems sullen and his replies monosyllabic. 

“Rey?”

“She’ll be back soon. She had to do something. Force things,” Finn says, continuing on his way in the opposite direction.

“Right.” It’s always Force things with Rey. Something happened yesterday at the very end and it involved her and Kylo Ren and the Emperor. And she decided to leave before sharing any of the information with him. Information that could be crucial.

He pushes down his unending frustration with Rey and her secrets and enters the command briefing room where people have started filtering in. 

The meeting starts slow, information incomplete and contradictory on what First Order bases have been decommissioned, how many ships taken down and on the current location of the remaining command. At some point in the afternoon, Chewie and Lando arrive and sit down quietly with the rest of the Resistance. They review the report Rose put together on their remaining fleet but it is unclear which of the ships that joined the day before would still be willing to join another offense. 

“From the little intelligence we were able to gather, Kylo Ren has disappeared and the First Order is currently re-convening in the Core Worlds, somewhere near Corellia, but we have no way of knowing how long they’ll be there,’ Poe says. ‘The uprising that happened on multiple planets took them by surprise. We should move swiftly and take out as many of their Star Destroyers as possible before they are able to regroup. Without a fleet-”

“Take out? You mean, blow up,” Jannah speaks, her tone even but loud enough that it interrupts Poe.

“Yes, without a fleet, the First Order is just-” Poe tries to continue his explanation but he is cut off again.

“There were three million stormtroopers on Starkiller Base. _Three million._ Finn?” Jannah turns to the ex-stormtrooper as if looking for an ally to the argument she is building up to. 

Both Generals look at her in surprise and the mood suddenly becomes tense.

“They killed trillions in the Hosnian System. They had to be stopped,” Poe intervenes before Finn can reply.

“I can’t believe you!” she continues, still addressing Finn. “They were never given a _chance to-_ ”

“Yes, they were! They have a choice, you and I are proof of that!” Finn bursts out.

Jannah jumps up from her seat, inadvertently ending up in the middle of their gathering circle. “I wasn’t given a choice _,_ Finn!” Her voice raises higher with each word and she finds it’s suddenly very difficult to breathe. “I was given an _opportunity._ I thought you of all people- _”_

“General Dameron,” Lando interrupts the brewing chaos in a cool voice. “I lost my child to the First Order. It is a pain that I wouldn’t wish on anyone. The uncertainty I feel today that the ships I shot down yesterday might have had my daughter on is -” his voice wavers and he pauses for a moment, looks down to recompose himself, then starts again. 

“Why do you think it took so long for the Galaxy to rally against the First Order? Do you think it was only fear? Complacency? There are somewhere close to twenty million people under those stormtrooper helmets. Many are kids my daughter’s age. Their families still remember them and hope to get them back one day.”

Jannah turns to Poe. “ _They_ also hope to get back. I never stopped, no matter what they did to me. I was old enough to remember my family after they took me. Not their faces or names but _them_ , how they felt, how it was to have a family. I always hoped I would find them and my freedom again.”

“I had friends on Starkiller. Not friends like I have in the Resistance, but the kind of friends you could make in the First Order.” Finn’s voice is low, almost a whisper, but the room had gotten so quiet after Lando’s confession, that his words are clearly heard. “They weren’t bad people. None of us would ever say it out loud but many, _so many_ were just doing whatever they could to survive.” 

And just like that, being a General is not just a game he and Poe are playing but an actual opportunity to do something concrete and worthwhile.

“I want to find my daughter, Generals. I don’t know if she’s still alive, but I have to hope she is. That’s why I’m here. She may choose to stay and fight for them, but I want her to know that I made it possible for her to _leave_. That’s how I convinced all those people to join yesterday. Almost every single one of them has lost a kid to the First Order.” 

“I understand. The Resistance was never about choosing violence, that’s what our enemy does. But-” Poe rubs the back of his head. “The First Order is like a pressurized tank, we have not been able to get eyes and ears on the inside.”

Suddenly, the pieces click into place. The reason why she is here. “I believe...I believe that’s why I’m here,” Jannah replies with a small smile, recognizing for the first time that maybe it was the Force that brought her here after all. 

“That’s why there’s two of us,” Finn says. “Two initiatives: more allies from civilians and weakening them from the inside. It will only make us stronger.”

Poe looks uncertain at how much valuable information a trooper could have. If they were to truly stage a rebellion inside the First Order, they would need information that only their high command would know. But he knows he is outnumbered and he can’t outright say no, not if he and Finn are to share the command of the Resistance. 

“It’s an avenue we’ll explore,” he concedes.

“Well, it looks like we got everything we need,” Lando says.

BB-8 rolls into the briefing room, announcing to Poe through a series of excited beeps that he has an important incoming message. Deciding this is as good a moment as any to take a break and let the spirits cool off, he gets up and walks to his room deep in thought. 

-

The next day, Ben wakes up when the midday sun creeps up towards his bed. A sudden jab against his side causes pain to flash in his injuries. Without opening his eyes, his brain sluggishly registers that he feels hot and that something heavy is preventing him from moving. He is sweaty under the bedding, which is unusual for him. The feeling of the very warm body pressed against his side is even more strange. When his eyes open wide to find a beautiful girl sleeping on his numb arm, his breath gets trapped in his chest and the night before rushes back into his brain. 

He breathes lightly, struggling with the wild tempo of his heart, too afraid that the scene will turn out to be just a cruel dream and evaporate right before his eyes. He’s never seen Rey quite this close and peaceful, her features relaxed in her slumber. He takes in the smoothness of her brows, the way her lashes fan over her golden cheeks, the smattering of freckles over the upturned slope of her nose. Under her wild, sleep-ruffled hair, he notices that the bruised scrape on her forehead hasn’t fully healed. He feels moved and slightly irked at her choice to come to him so early without resting and healing properly first. He moves the hair from her eyes and pauses to gently caress the top of her head, unsure if he is allowed such touches and what will she want of him in the future.

He tries to move slowly, dragging his numb arm from under her, but her eyelids flutter with wakefulness, brows crinkling in effort to stay asleep for a while longer. 

“You’re being very loud,” she says, opening one eye to peek at him, and then the other. He watches her focusing and going through the same process of recalling the past thirty-six hours as he did. 

“Hi,” she smiles hesitantly at him and shifts to allow him to pull his arm from under her torso. 

“Hi,” he says, suddenly shy for being caught staring.

“How are you feeling?” she asks, taking in the grimace he makes while trying to get blood flowing back into his arm. 

“Like a creaky chair. But I think the worst of it has passed,” he answers hoarsely.

Rey sits up and kneels next to him on the bed, transitioning smoothly between the grogginess of waking up and full alertness. “Can I look?” she gestures towards his leg.

“Sure,” Ben answers, still feeling on the backfoot at how open and generous she is being with him.

Rey pulls the covers away from his body, helping him lift his injured leg over the covers and ignoring his shiver when her hands carefully open the metal clasps on his brace. She uses her fingers to gently peel away the remaining layer of gelatinous bacta goop, uncovering the pale skin now marred by the long, pink scar left over from the surgery. Replacing his shattered bone with metal.

“Can I touch?” she asks, looking up from his leg, watching the way both of his hands are braced against the bed as if he’s ready to jump up and bolt at any second.

“Y-es,” he says, his voice breaking just slightly on the word, but it’s enough to betray his uncertainty.

“It might hurt,” she warns and looks back down to lift his leg up from the brace. She scoops the rest of the bacta with her palms, places it back into the metal casing and moves it away from the bed. Once that’s done, she stretches his leg on the covers and gently feels around, applying pressure here and there. Her fingers feel strange and ticklish on the healing flesh of his leg, but when she moves to lift up his shirt to examine his side, it is as if all the air has been blown out of his lungs.

“ _Does_ it hurt?” she asks, lifting her hazel eyes back to his, the gentleness of her gaze and touch spurring a deep ache in his chest.

“No,” he answers truthfully, the pain he is feeling is not the kind she is asking about.

“Then why are you shaking?”

He swallows against the lump in his throat and shakes his head. It is a new kind of torture to finally be given what you have yearned for and never thought you would have again. His thoughts are no longer sluggish, but his mind is painfully spiraling with jagged memories of being loved and cared for. Of all the times he grieved the lack of someone to soothe his pain. 

Just one night of having her in his arms, it was just that easy to overturn his conviction that he should do whatever it takes for her to have a happy life. Of course he couldn’t just be content that she’s here with him now, alive. Of course he now wants more. With her. Of course he couldn’t just let her be. 

“Ben?” she drags herself back up to him, noticing his turmoil. For the third time, she cups his face and looks at him questioningly. 

“I’m happy that you’re here,” he lies with a truth, obscuring his fears from her.

Her belly rumbles and he smiles. “Was that a rathtar?” he asks.

“Worse than one. I could eat one,” she says, all too aware that she has spent more than a day with almost nothing to eat.

“Then let’s go find some food,” he swings his legs to get down from the bed.

While Rey takes a shower, Ben is surprised to be greeted by the small alien he saw the day before, Nob. She announces that she has brought food and her masters have lent him an old service droid to help and then scurries away. At his request, the service droid brings a tray laden with sweet-smelling muja fruit, bread, olives, a white, fluffy kind of cheese and dried shaak meat.

Heat blooms on Ben’s face when Rey comes back to the room wearing a deep red robe clinging to her form, hair wet and loose on her shoulders. As he gets up from the bed and tries walking around, he discovers that his leg is doing okay, but he still has trouble if he puts weight on it. He reaches for the crutches. Rey notices and she comes around to his side, wedging her shoulder under his armpit to help him walk to the small bathroom next to their room. 

“Please tell me,” she asks him to be honest with her as she sits him down on the marble stoop from the bathroom. 

“I wasn’t prepared for you to be here-” he starts, his thoughts and feelings buzzing in the air between them “-and now that you are, I find myself afraid of what will happen once you are going to leave.”

“I will have to go, soon. Tomorrow. But I will come back, Ben. If you want me to. And perhaps soon I could stay here with you.”

His arms come around her middle and he pulls her to him, burying his face in her torso, feeling the skin of her belly under the silky fabric, so soft and warm after her shower. He doesn’t know if he could accept that, not while he is a prisoner here but the thought that he won’t have to say goodbye, at least not yet, soothes him in the moment.

“Thank you,” he says instead. Because no matter what they will be allowed to have, he is floored and so grateful for her willingness to come here to help him and care for him the way she has. 

Her belly growls again loudly against his ear and this time he laughs out loud, squeezing her gently.

“I think I’m supposed to let you go eat,” he unwinds his arms from around her and looks up at her.

“Do you need help?”

Ben takes her in, her drying hair starting to wave against her face, her skin warmed and pink in the sun streaming through the large bathroom windows. He shakes his head, his cheeks flushing at the idea of getting fully naked in front of her. Last year it was different when she shied away from his nakedness. Last year, he didn’t think she could want him. He then felt callous at the knowledge that his body could ignite some interest. Now he doesn’t know if he can withstand her looking at him in that way while he feels so vulnerable.

Rey nods, and leaves him alone with a smile.

\--

_“The Resistance General Poe Dameron’s presence is expected on Naboo for negotiating the terms of granting Ben Solo, also known as Kylo Ren, asylum on Naboo. The General is expected to present an outline for the protection of Naboo against First Order attacks in exchange for political protection of the asylum seeker. Please confirm your presence at the earliest convenience.”_

Underneath there are a number of dates and time options. 

Poe reads the message five times, with each new pass his confusion getting worse. 

Kylo Ren is alive and on Naboo. Kylo Ren is seeking asylum on Naboo. Naboo expects the Resistance to _protect_ him?

It makes no sense. The first thing that comes to mind is that the message arriving on his private frequency is either a mistake, a First Order ploy, or some sort of coded intelligence from an informant. But it is clearly addressed to him and it bears the authentic seal of the Naboo Council. He asked BB-8 to check.

It makes no sense.

Through the confusion, a few facts come to his mind: Rey fought Kylo Ren the day before, and afterwards ran away. Rey has been keeping secrets. Rey exploded a transport with lightning shooting out of her bare hand. Rey, after refusing to get off Ajan Kloss for almost a full year is now gone somewhere without any explanation. As all this information slowly morphs into understanding in his mind, anger as hot as molten rock descends to burn in his stomach.

Rey is a - _traitor_?

\--

When Ben walks out of the bathroom, he finds his crutches resting against the wall. In the bedroom, he notices that Rey has already eaten some of the food, and regrets not being there to watch her eat. He looks around to find where she has gone. With the way her Force signature just _sings,_ it doesn’t take long to be drawn to where the noon sun bathes Rey’s form in the light of the bedroom terrace. The gentle breeze weaves through her hair as she is taking everything in: the fragrant air, the rich rustle of leaves, the gentle sounds of lapping water against the stone terrace. 

It has been a long time since the ivy growing on the white columns framing the terrace has been trimmed. It is now wild, knitting and looping itself in tangled ropes that explode at the top, spilling back down in a green veil that provides shade, should she want to step out of the light. She lets herself breathe in the stillness and relishes the feeling of this forgiving heat against her skin. The balcony from the bedroom offers a different view than what she briefly saw the night before.The lake opens in between the two forested mountain slopes to show a tiny island in the distance. 

Ever since she woke up with the awareness that she had been held all through her sleep, an unfamiliar feeling of serenity has been humming under her skin. The Force whirs just slightly louder when she feels Ben approaching, the buzz of his thoughts slowly turning discordant, with his feelings resonating in the air. 

Her peacefulness is not shared.

“It’s so beautiful here,” she says when he steps out on the terrace. She’s still in the silky robe from earlier, her skin golden and her hair drying and curling in the humid air. He’s never realized how wavy her hair is. 

Ben takes the scene in. “It is,” especially her - in this place. For a moment the feeling that this must all be a cruel dream slithers back into his mind.

“Can we go to the lake?” Rey asks, looking down at the small rowboat anchored at the bottom of the terrace stairs. 

“Of course-” he says seriously when he is almost in line with her “-but _I’m not_ rowing the boat,” he half-jokes, thinking of just how painful it would be to do that with his aching ribs. At her answering laughter, his heart swells just a little, aware that this is the first time she is laughing with him. It might even be one of the first times she is not crying. 

She turns to him, noticing the safe distance he’s keeping from her. He busies himself resting one of his crutches against the stone railing and balances in place with the remaining one.

“Are you ever gonna kiss me?” her eyes travel across his features “Or do I have to do it every time?”

The question takes all the mirth away from their conversation. 

“Rey...being here...with me. This will hurt you.”

“You asked me for a whole year to join you and _now_ you change your mind,” she scoffs.

“That didn’t mean sexually.” The words exit his mouth in a mumble, without thought or awareness of why it would be relevant to lie about _that_ now. 

“ _Excuse me?!_ ” she all but yells at him and she blushes in both embarrassment and anger, offended and hurt by the unexpected turn of this conversation. “I could see straight from your head that you wanted it to be,” she calls out his blatant lie. “Yeah, you were _very_ undecided whether you should first have me on a bed, pressed against the wall or _right there_ on the floor on my hands and knees!” 

“I- yes, I wanted it but that didn’t mean you had to-” he shakes his head, incredulous that this is where he willingly brought the conversation. In the aftermath of killing Snoke, desire for her had coursed freely through him, as it had once they were face to face on Exegol, there is no denying that. “I have no control on what’s coming next now,” he finishes lamely. 

“So you _did_ change your mind,” she says coldly.

“It doesn’t matter what I want!” he throws his free hand up in the air. “Can’t you see? Lando said it: the wolves are going to descend. I fully expect that.”

“I promised you last year that I would help you, I am planning to keep that promise, no matter what happens between us.”

“Rey, you are free. This is the time to live,” he says, so wretched at how her chin is starting to wobble. He feels his eyes stinging with the pain resonating through their connection.

“And what would that mean, according to you?”

He is silent in response, frozen in place, unable to push himself into the torture of imagining her life away from him. Rey is starting to pace.

“So I should go and live my life now and never think about you?” angry tears start gathering in her eyes. “I should let them throw you in some prison for life or _worse ..._ ” she can’t even finish the thought - _k_ _ill you._ “Is that what you’re suggesting?”

She looks at him, quiet and shaking before her and wonders if he’s been defanged. For the briefest moments, she lets the cruel thought bleed loudly so he can hear it. 

At that, his eyes jump to hers, and he grinds his teeth, gripping the crutch until his knuckles turn white. He doesn’t like being pushed into things, but she’s hurt and her fangs are showing.

“Do you want this or not?” Rey stops her pacing, too tired to fight. 

Ben looks away, struggling to keep every muscle in his body tight and coiled, holding himself in place.

Her legs are shaking, anger and rejection burning hot, but Rey knows she has to make her position crystal clear. “You may be content with being some sort of martyr, but I am not content with getting scraps of the things that I want. Not anymore, not with you.”

“Ask me-” he starts, but his voice catches on the lump in his throat, “-ask me what I did in the past year.”

Rey is confused, but she searches his face and realizes that this is important to him, so she nods and heads back inside. She sits down at the small table and waits quietly for him to catch up and sit down. 

It takes him a long time to start and she breaks off pieces of bread and stuffs them angrily in her face with things from the table at random, struggling to be patient while he watches her. When he finally starts, they have both calmed down. He tells her about his quest to find Sith artifacts and destroy them. About the feeling that even with Snoke gone, the dark presence that has loomed over him still existed. How the visions started to get worse and worse until he couldn’t sleep for weeks. How he dove deeper and deeper into the dark side. How he became consumed by it while Hux and Pryde reigned free over the Galaxy.

“I know all this,” Rey says in a small voice. She didn’t know the details, of course. But she was aware of it as he was aware of her own struggles.

“I failed. I didn’t do what I set out to do. You were right,” he says glumly.

Rey watches him, feeling other thoughts coming from him, echoes of things he _did_ try to do. She waits for him to elaborate but he dismisses them one by one thinking they amounted to nothing. 

“You know,” she starts “there was this one time, I must have been fourteen or so that I found a Ghtroc 690 ship in Starship Graveyard. It was deep down in this huge, glassy ridge that we called the Crackle, but I was a good climber. I didn’t tell anyone I had found it at first. The first day, I knew a storm was coming and that I should leave it and come back after a few days, but I didn’t. I thought I could _use_ the storm and get ahead of everyone else salvaging it. I found food and other things I could take with me, so I made my way up carrying all of those things, but the storm had already started and it was so vile that I could not even consider trying to fly through it on my speeder. It almost killed me, I got buried in the sand but I would still not let those things go. It _would_ have killed me, actually. I had to leave all the things I took right there and crawl home where I knew I had nothing. No food, no water and I had to wait three whole days before the storm abated.” 

At her story, his brows initially raised in surprise at her sudden change in topic, descend into a frown, anger at how badly life has treated her raising its ugly head.

“No, don’t. That’s not why I am telling you this,” she waves one hand through the air as if to dispel his mournful thoughts. “You can’t take advantage of a storm. But I know how it is to be hungry enough, to be desperate enough to try, Ben. It was bigger than both of us. I failed too. When I refused you last year I wanted to prove that the past didn’t define me, that I wouldn’t let that anger rule me. You weren’t right to ask me to stay, but I wasn’t right to ask you to come with me either. We were both wrong. I isolated myself from everyone and everything, I thought I could push those feelings down, even blamed you for them. But they only grew into this big, _ugly_ thing. And then I hurt you. I’m sorry-”

He shakes his head and takes one of her hands in his on the table “No…you saved me.”

“It is not too late,” she tells him. “You said we are a dyad in the Force. That our destinies-”

“You are free of that bloodline now. You can choose differently,” he cuts her off, letting go of her hand.

“You still think this is about Vader and Sidious?! That is a big load of bantha shit, Ben Solo!” the anger spikes so fast again it leaves her dizzy. She throws their connection open, letting her turmoil bleed right into his mind.

“This happened between you and me on Starkiller,” she gets up from the chair and takes a step towards him, her voice loud in the quiet of this place.

“This happened when you insisted that I fucking _see you_ , know you, want you.” She jabs a pointed finger at his chest. “So don’t give me a load of crap about our fucking grandfathers having anything to do with how I feel about you.” 

She takes a deep breath, struggling to calm down. He’s looking down, avoiding her eyes, so she kneels in front of his chair where his gaze can’t escape her and cups her palms around his fingers. “It happened when you reached across the Galaxy to comfort me and tell me I was not alone.”

“When you stubbornly wanted me for a full year even though I was trying to get rid of how I felt.” At this, his eyes, now brimming with tears turn to hers. He turns his hands palms up to catch her fingers in his. His tears drop silently down his cheeks and he presses her palms to his lips one by one. He pulls her up to stand in front of him and then draws her close, until she sits on his knees. It would take just the slightest shift of their bodies to bring her flush against him, but they maintain the small distance.

“When you took my hand and used your soul to breathe air back into my lungs,” she finally concludes in a whisper, the tears gathering in her own eyes finally falling.

Ben is dizzy at the way she feels through the bond. It is the first time she is completely unguarded with him and he is calm enough to listen and feel her so close, and so clear that their edges are blurring. She _shows_ him how she had wanted to take his hand. How, no matter which way she fought against herself, she had daily felt a stab of hunger and found nourishment every time she felt him brush against her mind. How she _relished_ in that darkness. 

She shows him how _greedy_ she feels for him now. How, after feeling how it is to wake up in his arms, she denies any path that would separate her from getting that every single day of her life. 

“Rey, I am a selfish man…” Ben closes his eyes and places his palms on her shoulders in an effort to calm both of them down. His mind is still reeling as if he is walking on a tight rope suspended over a great chasm. He shows her too. He shows her how much he now wants to take her hand but how he fears falling without knowing where they will end up landing. How much he needs her to understand that he can barely breathe with the uncertainty of tomorrow. 

But he’s not uncertain about her, never about her and the place she has in his mind and in his heart. He opens his eyes, snaking his hands around her torso to finally pull her in an embrace and let their bodies mold with each other. The feeling of rightness is staggering. 

“Kiss. _Me_.” She turns her face up to him.

“I always want you,” he says simply, needing her to know this, to be certain about this just as he cups the back of her head, dipping down and pulling her into a hungry kiss.

He is glad to discover she’s as eager, opening to him and licking into his mouth and into his soul, pressing her body against his and making heat bloom in his chest. He can feel the intention of her kiss different from the other times. The Force resounds through both of them, their bond shifting and vibrating in their ears as they both moan with the new awareness of each other’s hunger.

They break apart for a moment and she takes in his red lips and his eyes shining with hope, love and a nascent trust. Her heart constricts with just how much she feels for him. 

“I didn’t know you swear so much," he tells her wryly, shifting his hands to gently massage the muscles at the base of her neck, asking for permission to learn more. Know more.

“Did I offend the sensibilities of the Prince of Alderaan?” she pushes back.

He smiles and lets his hands caress her back, wanting but at the same time too shy to take. She slides her hands under his loose shirt to feel his skin and the feel of her touch and of the way her naked heat is pressed against his cock almost overwhelms him. His breath stutters, the sudden rush of arousal making his head spin.

“Rey,” he breathes, uncertain if he’s asking permission or mercy, hard and tight against her belly. But she scoots away from him, cheeks flushed and robe slightly parted to reveal the skin between her breasts all the way down to her navel. She looks down to where his pants strain against his hardness and her lips fall open, looking at this part of him she hasn’t experienced yet. 

He swallows and clears his throat. “Sorry. I’m - you feel very good,” he says, trying to calm down and regain some composure before he scares her away. 

“Good,” she says, her voice deep and breathy. The Force sings in a new, strange harmony when she takes his hand to slowly bring it between her spread knees; the hair on the back of his neck stands up. He shivers when he realizes what she’s doing, but there’s not much time to think before his fingertips are brushing against her hot flesh and he can feel how wet she is. 

“I feel it too,” she says, her own voice shaking. She stands up and steps back, his hand still in hers, her amber eyes wide and dark despite the lowering sun bathing the room in golden light. She turns and starts walking, pulling him to stand with her and he follows in a daze. 

He feels like he might just lose the little composure he has left when she opens her robe as they reach the shadow of the bed canopy, she lets the fabric slide off her shoulders and turns to him, fully naked.

As if in a trance, he removes his shirt too and finally, suddenly, the uncertainty leaves him because his soulmate is here and she wants him. He would drop to his knees if that were possible but with the stiffness in his leg that will have to wait. Instead, he catches her upper arms and kisses her without hiding how much he wants this, how much he’s dreamed about this, how much he thought this would never become reality. 

He presses himself against her, moaning at the contact, his hands moving to her hips to caress her backside, pulling her flush against him. But Rey, as usual, doesn’t hesitate to go for what she wants and dips one of her hands past his waistband to grasp his erection in her hot palm.

The sound he makes is not entirely human, and as she starts stroking him, he is reminded that if he doesn’t fight the flow of this, he will finish before they even truly begin. He turns them around so he can walk back to the bed, kissing hungrily down her neck and around her collarbones, until he can sit on the mattress with her standing between his legs. He smiles at her tiny disgruntled noise when his cock goes out of her reach. 

But now he is level with her breasts, his mouth watering at her pebbled nipples and his heart thudding so loudly and so fiercely that his chest might open to let it fly away. He nuzzles one of her breasts and she runs her fingers over his cheeks and through his hair to keep him close. 

“All your scars are gone. How?” she asks, realizing their absence on his body only now that she sees his torso fully uncovered.

“You healed me,” he looks up at her and swipes his tongue against one hardened nipple. 

“Ben,” she whispers, running one finger down the invisible path of the scar she gave him, overwhelmed by the sensation and his admission.

His hands travel to her backside, bringing her even closer to him and her deep moans and breaths encourage him to slide his fingers between her legs, gently opening her and finding her wet core again. 

“Soft or hard?” he asks for direction breathlessly, wanting this to be good for her. 

“Start soft,” she whispers, shily offering up memories of how she touches herself. “Use your finger pads. Like that.”

She cries out and throws her head back when his mouth returns to her breasts and his fingers dance against her, back and forth back and forth. He becomes almost delirious at the high pitched cry she releases when he slides a finger from his other hand inside. His hands feel different, his fingers bigger than hers but even with the slight sting of the stretch, she can feel herself climbing.

She steps back, pushing against his shoulders to get him to lay down on the bed, and he does, scooting back. When she pulls his pants off him, his erection catching on the waistband and slapping back on his abdomen it wakes him up from his trance.

“Rey, what do you want?” he asks as she moves over him.

“I-I want to be with you,” she says, unsure how her intentions could be misinterpreted when she is practically straddling him, naked.

“I haven’t done this. I am not sure I’ll be - good,” he says but she doesn’t think that he needs to worry when only his fingers felt so good.

“I haven’t either. We’ll figure it out,” she shrugs, knowing that there’s a big chance this time will mostly feel uncomfortable for her. “There’s time for good to come later.”

“Can I...I think if I release first, I’ll last longer. I feel like right now I could easily get - overwhelmed,” he explains, completely understating how ready he’s been to come ever since she sat on his lap on the chair. “I can get you ready while I recover.”

“How?” she scoots down on his thighs, careful not to put too much pressure on his recovering leg.

He props himself up on one elbow to put his fingers back on her and grabs his cock with his other hand. When she sighs and grinds into his hand, he thinks he’ll have the most mind-blowing orgasm just from touching like this. Dizzy at how her eyes are fixed on his hand pumping his cock, drunk just from the fact she wants to watch.

She looks at him, unable to take her eyes from him touching himself. She has nothing to measure him against, but he’s big all over. His erection looks large even in his hand. He’s beautiful, with the way he’s looking at her, his eyes full of lust dancing over her face and then looking down at where he is touching her. She wants to touch him too. 

“I want to do that. If you’ll show me how.”

She shifts up on his thighs, wrapping her fingers around him. She is able to almost wrap her fingers around him but not quite, so he helps her compensate by twisting her wrist just so. He guides her hand with his own and collapses back on the bed with a moan after the first few strokes. He shows her the pressure he likes and how to stroke him and she starts moving by herself. He really won’t last long at all. 

An instinct makes her shift down and grab the tip of him in her mouth to lick twice around the head before he pushes against her shoulders with a loud, alarmed moan and catches his spend in his palm. 

He brings her back up and hugs her to him, incredulous still that they are doing this now, together.

“Was that good?” she asks as he remembers his fingers between her legs and picks the pace up again.

“Sweetheart - it was unreal,” he breathes out, drunk on her, pulling her into a slow and soft kiss. 

“Will you lay down next to me?” he asks and she does, laying down on her back while he wipes his hand on a napkin.

He moves above her, taking his time to kiss down her body, teasing her breasts and kissing her belly until he comes to rest on his stomach between her legs and resumes touching her as he did before. “Can you show me - what feels good? Just for a little while,” he asks, wanting to bring her to her peak. 

She does, brazen after seeing his display of pleasure, opening her knees wide and bringing one hand from below to pump two fingers shallowly inside and two stroking her bundle of nerves from above. Her movements firm and the rhythm steady, she is already so wet and worked up that there’s no need to be gentle anymore. He watches for a while, drawing closer and kissing her inner thigh. 

“Force, you’ve made a mess down here,” he says when he takes over. He presses two fingers into her, sliding easily in and out, knowing instinctively that she is this wet _for him_.

She lifts up to see whether that’s a good or a bad thing, shifting slightly away from him. He growls at the movement, grabbing her hips to bring her back under his mouth. She laughs, surprised at his reaction and is mesmerized by the sight of him dipping down to put his lips on her.

“I have dreamed about this,” he says. 

“Me too, sometimes.”

The first swipes of his tongue are more for his own pleasure than hers. All the same, she bucks into his mouth, ready for him. His tongue is different than anything she’s ever felt, softer, wetter and it takes a while to get accustomed to the new sensation while he learns what coaxes the loudest sounds from her. She guides him to go harder, faster as her moans and whimpers get desperate and she starts bearing down on his fingers. He obliges, pushing them deeper and curling them inside against where he can feel her fluttering. She cries out at the sensation, her hands flying to his hair, holding him against her as she grinds herself into his face, arching and bucking desperately until her whole body convulses with pleasure, soaring high.

She’s aware her cries were incredibly loud, but coming down, she realizes he’s also moaning, still licking into her and grinding against the bed. He lifts his head from her when he feels her eyes on him. He looks a bit mad, with his hair sticking wildly in all directions, lips swollen and red, the look in his eyes erratic and astonished.

“Do you still want to?” he asks.

“Yes, oh, _yes,_ ” she says, still moving on his fingers. 

He moves up her body swiftly, the pain in his leg forgotten, his arousal back in full force. He’s shaking above her, his kisses slick and sloppy while he grabs himself at the base and rubs his cock against her. She feels something inside her spasm in response.

“Rey, I -” he starts, panicked and eager, happy and dizzy and reverent.

“I know, I know.”

As he pushes inside, they groan in unison; for completely different reasons.

It hurts. She is surprised at how quick she goes from desperately wanting him inside to white-hot pain. Once he’s only halfway, she starts shaking and he freezes, her pain resounding in the bond, caught between his desire to push and the pain of hurting her. She’s holding her breath, completely still, trying to focus away. 

“Ben, I don’t think I can-” she leaves the thought unfinished - _take it_ , but he feels it all the same. He dips down to kiss her lips, but her jaw is clenched tight. He hesitates, at a loss and just when he thinks to pull out and maybe they’ll try this another time, her legs lock him in place and she shakes her head. _It’s now._

Her command gives him the conviction of what he has to do. He can’t take away the pain, but he can walk her through it.

“You can take it. You can,” he says kissing her face all over “You can-” a kiss on her furrowed brow “It’s just me, you can take me,” a tentative press to her closed lips. “I’m here,” his free arm caressing her skin wherever he can reach. Her lips soften under his and she allows him to deepen the kiss, to sweep his tongue gently into her mouth and coax her pleasure again. This, she loves, so she focuses on his kiss. 

Under his attention, her body relaxes, the grip of her thighs on his waist loosens and with a small tilt of her hips lets him know he can move. Ben, still halfway there, continues his pushing without stopping his encouragement for even one moment. He shows her what to do with the pain. He guides her and draws her to him in his mind so that she can experience how she feels to him. She cries out at the sudden rush of pleasure mingling with the pain.

“Shhh…” he soothes, but whatever he wants to say gets lost when she opens her legs wider and pushes against him in earnest. He grabs on her hip, holding her in place, unable to talk as he starts to thrust inside, stopping abruptly from time to time when he feels it’s too much.

“That’s it, take all of me,” he starts speaking again once his rhythm gets steady, even though his breath is now stuck in his chest. 

“You’re so good to me,” even though each one of his exhales is now a moan. 

He only interrupts the string of adoration to kiss her. “You feel so good, Rey”, each kiss deeper, each time better. 

“You take me so good, so hot,” he’s slowly coming apart and the sight and sound of it, is carrying her, riding his bliss and starting to feel her own. 

“You make me feel so good,” he slowly, tortuously pulls out only to push back in again, and again. 

“Are you okay?” Ben whispers after some time, caressing her cheek and coaxing her eyes to open.

Rey had been focusing, feeling so immersed with him that she hadn’t even realized she wasn’t looking at him anymore. Her eyes open to Ben’s bewildered face, a look of genuine adoration in his eyes. She nods and stretches to kiss him once, sweetly and reassuringly. He starts moving faster in response and soon her hips are moving to meet him, her chest is arching up and her mouth pants open, hungrily catching his kisses. 

Even though this time it’s mixed with pain, the familiar buildup is coiling inside her and his moans grow desperate. When she starts clenching around him he loses the calming anchor in her mind and their pleasure entwines, heightened and out of control. She cries out with him, grasping his hips tightly, arching desperately into him until the tension unfurls and he abruptly pulls out of her to spill himself on her belly with a string of _ReyReyRey._

“I’m so sorry,” he groans while she shakes at the unexpected loss of contact. 

She feels shaken, but pleasure still buzzes through her body with a promise for the future.

“It’s okay. We need practice,” she smirks, entranced by the way he’s unconsciously rubbing his erection in the mess he made on her skin. At her words, he raises his eyebrows minutely like he wants nothing more than to believe her words.

He lays down next to her again, kissing her shoulder as he gently cleans her stomach. He cycles through everything he could say to her, feeling like he should apologize again for hurting her, for not being able to hold out long enough for her to join him over the edge. 

He tries to heal her, but she stops him, shaking her head. “It’s a nice soreness” she shrugs, wanting to hold on to the impression of him for longer.

“Thank you,” he says eventually. 

“You don’t have to _thank me!_ ” she laughs, thinking that even though it wasn’t entirely equal, the pleasure was quite mutual.

“I do, I could feel it wasn’t easy.”

“This time” she grins up at him. “It will be different after my body knows yours," she says with certainty.

His eyes are round and bright when he pulls her against his side so that she can rest her head on his chest. They hold each other for a long time, echoes of their thoughts and feelings dipping and swimming in the space they share until he feels close to dozing off again.

“Do you want to run?” she asks, letting the reality of what will come next wash over her. “We can hide together. Maybe they won’t find us. We could just - _go_.”

It’s impulsive, but it’s an honest question. He can feel how now, in this moment, she would leave everything behind if he asked. In an echo of him pleading with her to join him a year ago, this time she would say yes.

But he is not the same as he was a year ago and neither is she. He now wants to be a better man for her. When he ran from Kef Bir to find her on Exegol, he left all of that life behind. He wanted her to live and now she is here, in his arms, ready to give everything up. He doesn’t want that. He brought her back to life, but that is only half. The rest, making her happy, is not one grand gesture, but a lifetime of good choices. All of these years he had wanted to wipe out everything he lost and forget the people that hurt him and those he hurt. But now, as he is basking in her light, dazed by the impression of her thoughts brushing over him like love, he knows he needs to truly start making his way out of the darkness. If he is to share a life with her, he needs to find an end for what came before. If he is to be by her side, he needs to save his soul.

“No. I don’t want that,” he finally answers, threading their fingers together on his chest.

She lifts her head to look him in the eye. “You will have to fight,” she warns.

“I will” he promises, shifting down to press a kiss on her forehead. 

It’s a pact, a new one. 

They will both fight for the life they want. 

Together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing character development through smut? Sounds exactly like me.
> 
> I am so soft for them. Ben really has a long way to go, but I wanted to bring him to a point where he is ready to fight again.
> 
> Also, what will Poe do? Poor Rey, she really underestimated the Naboo bureaucracy. Please don't throw tomatoes at me! All will be well in the end.
> 
> I am not going to promise anything regarding the schedule of the next update, if you follow me on Twitter you know I have been through absolute SHIT in the past three weeks. But know that we will have some more lovely fluff with these two before shit hits the fan!
> 
> Come say hi on Twitter @poopsiekittens


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